Norman Frederick wrote:
Ralph Shumaker wrote:I thank you both for your answers. You got me on the right direction in spite of my typing errors. In my SS C is the date Sold, D is the amount rcvd, E is the date Bought, F is the amount Paid, G is short and H is long term. Even the IRS will not argue with 365 days as a year.Norman Frederick wrote:
The IRS will not argue with 365 days as a year if and only if the law says to use 365 days for this purpose.
Exactly 365 is a condition so improbable that I can live with it.
A corollary to Murphy's Law says that the more one dismisses unfortunate events as improbable, the more probable they become :-)
When I finally put Shumakers formula in correctly it worked just as I wanted. What I ended with is:=IF(Cn-En<365,Dn-Fn,) for Gn and =IF(Cn-En>365,Dn-Fn,) for Hn
It's become worse. If you had followed Shumaker, a bad guess about the 365 thing would have led to your wife paying the wrong rate of tax on exactly-365-days gains. However you haven't put Shumaker's suggestion in. You have inverted the "days < 365" condition incorrectly as "days > 365" instead of "days >= 365". If the difference is exactly 365 days, the amount of gain is put in neither column G nor column H, and the IRS will nab you as an accessory to your wifes's tax evasion :-)