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Because you can choose the tax lot(s) you are selling, selling specific shares gives you more control over the gain or loss realized by a sale. If you sell tax lots with higher cost, you may expect a lower realized capital gain. Conversely, if you sell tax lots with lower cost, you may expect a higher realized capital gain.
On the Trade Stocks, Trade Options, or Enter Funds to Sell or Buy pages, select the Choose Specific Shares check box, then click Continue when you've specified the rest of your order details.
You can choose up to 200 tax lots for a security you hold in your account. You can also manually enter tax lots using the cost basis information from your records. Note that Fidelity does not validate tax lot shares that you enter manually. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to maintain accurate tax lot records.
Since the shares you hold may have been acquired at different times and different prices you can choose to have your shares sorted by long-term shares (with a holding period of greater than one year) or short-term shares (with a holding period of one year or less). A secondary sorting option allows you to sort the shares you hold by highest or lowest cost. In addition, you can attempt to minimize your gain or loss. If you do not request a specific sort option, the tax lots will be displayed in first in, first out (FIFO) order - that is, oldest shares acquired to the newest shares acquired.
If you decide to sort by cost, you can sort and pre-select your specific shares as follows:
Cost basis and unrealized gain/loss information is based on the prior business day's closing price or Net Asset Value (NAV) for the security traded. Fidelity does not guarantee that that you will achieve the desired outcome.
.Check your cost basis on the Positions page to determine if Fidelity has cost basis information for all of your holdings. If you transferred securities to your Fidelity account from another financial institution or another Fidelity account, you may need to provide Fidelity the original cost basis for those shares. There is a one-business-day delay from the time you provide cost basis information to Fidelity to the time when all of your cost basis is displayed and available.
Although Fidelity sorts, prioritizes and preselects tax lots to expedite your order, you may choose from additional tax lots and make changes to the quantity of shares from each tax lot by simply typing over the share quantities displayed. You can't specify more shares than the total for the order. If you specify fewer shares than the total for the order, Fidelity will calculate the gain/loss for any unselected shares based on the first in, first out cost basis method.
If your order receives multiple executions, the first tax lots selected will be used to determine the gain/loss for the shares executed. The shares sorted and selected first (at the top of the list of tax lots) have the highest priority.
No. If you enter multiple sell orders on the same security, you cannot select the same tax lots for each order.
You can manually enter your own tax lot information based on your records by selecting Enter Tax Lots on the Specify Shares page. Fidelity will report the tax lot(s) you enter on your trade confirmation. However, Fidelity can't update your cost basis tracking information with the details you provide.
No. You cannot change your tax lot selection on Fidelity.com after you have entered your order. A Fidelity representative may be able to help you correct the tax lot information you entered.
The tax lot specific share information is printed on the confirmation you receive via U.S. mail, and is included in the trade confirm page that you can view under the Confirms tab at Accounts & Trade > Statements.
Yes, brokers such as Fidelity, have a requirement to report sales information to the IRS on Form 1099-B. However, you are ultimately responsible for calculating your cost basis and gain/loss information and/or determining whether the cost basis information provided by Fidelity is appropriate for your federal tax reporting. Positions associated with an equity compensation plan or employee stock purchase plan may be treated as ordinary income rather than a capital gain for income tax purposes.