On 2025-09-15 18:39, Christopher Lam wrote: > I wouldn't record unrealised gains as Equity transfers. A house purchased > for $40k in 1976 would enjoy increasing values via period transfers from > equity; and if the up-to-date valuation is $800k, and you sell today, > you'll be recording a negligible capital gain.
You can back out the unrealized gain amount just before entering the sale transaction. Even if the transaction doesn't generate a tax obligation, I would do that anyway, so that the sale transaction contains the actual gain or loss. > It is in my view that > appreciating assets are best recorded as purchase price and left alone > until the sale, then a large capital gain is recorded as income. I don't track changes in the value of my house, because the only way to get the current value is to pay for an appraisal. In California, thanks to Prop. 13, assessed value rises no more than 2% a year, obviously much less than real appreciation of most housing. I do record unrealized gains in investments at the end of each quarter, so that the account balances in GnuCash match those my broker sends me. When I sell shares, I record the realized gain or loss from the broker's transaction confirmation in a GnuCash income account, but I don't try to figure what part of unrealized gains that represents. Technically my unrealized figure is wrong till the end of the quarter, when unrealized gains get re-synched against statements. But it's not wrong by much, relative to total unrealized gains, and this keeps things simple but the books balanced. Stan Brown Tehachapi, CA, USA https://BrownMath.com _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
