How to drill into one holding (and its CGT position)

The dashboard tells you what your portfolio is worth. It cannot answer the question you actually lie awake about, which is: if I sell this one, what happens at tax time?

That answer lives on the holding page. Open any holding and you get your position, how long you have held it, and a card that works through the CGT arithmetic for you: proceeds, cost base under FIFO, the gain, the 50% discount if you qualify, and the taxable amount left over.

This takes about two minutes and needs nothing you have not already done. If your transactions are not in yet, import your CommSec CSV first. If you want to find a specific holding quickly, sorting, filtering and searching your holdings covers the toolbar above the table.

Step 1 — Open the holding

From the holdings table, click the eye icon on the row you want. It is the second of the four small buttons at the end of the row, between the refresh arrow and the plus. On the CBA row its label reads View CBA holding details. The holding page opens at /holding/CBA.

Clicking anywhere else on the row does the same thing, and it works from any filtered view, so search for the code first if your table is long. Every holding you own has one of these pages, built from the transactions you imported or entered by hand. Nothing extra to set up, and nothing to configure. The page simply reads the parcels already sitting behind that row and shows you what they add up to.

Step 2 — Your position

The Your position section gives you six cards. For CBA: Quantity 30 shares held, Avg cost $95.90 per share, Market value $3,255.00 from 30 × $108.50, Unrealised $378.03 in green at +13.14%, Est. Yield 3.87% or $126.00/yr, and Holding Period 1y 165d since 15/01/2023.

Read them as a set. The first three tell you what you own and what it is worth today. Unrealised is the gain on paper, before any tax and before any discount. Holding Period is the one that decides how that gain is treated: 15/01/2023 is well past 12 months, so this parcel sits on the right side of the CGT discount line.

Step 3 — The identity card

Under the position cards, the identity card carries the basics: the CBA heading, the company name CBA Limited under it, the price $108.50 and today's move of +$1.31 · +1.21%. A price chart fills the rest of the same card, with the timeframe pills 1D 1W 1M 3M 6M 1Y 5Y underneath it.

The badge worth noticing is CGT Discount. It says the holding has passed the 12-month mark, which is what puts a real number on the 50% discount line further down the page. Open a holding you bought last month and the same badge reads No Discount instead. The discount line is still there, but it reads 50% discount (not eligible) and comes to $0.00, so the whole gain lands on the Taxable line.

Step 4 — The five tabs

Below the identity card are five tabs: Activity, Transactions, Dividends, CGT Position and Projections.

Transactions lists the buys and sells behind this holding, which is where you check a parcel date if a number looks wrong. Dividends is where you record payments and franking credits for this stock. CGT Position is the one this post is about.

Click CGT Position. Everything on that tab is calculated from the transactions already in your portfolio, so there is nothing to fill in. If the numbers look off, the fix is almost always a missing or mistyped transaction rather than anything on this screen.

Step 5 — "If you sold today"

Here is the payoff. The card works down the same five lines the ATO expects, for the 30 CBA shares you still hold:

• Proceeds $3,255.00
• Cost base · FIFO $2,876.97
• Gain $378.03
• 50% discount −$189.01
• Taxable $189.02

Proceeds are what the parcel is worth at today's price. The cost base is what you paid, matched under FIFO, so the oldest parcels are used first. The difference is the capital gain. Because the holding has passed 12 months, half of it drops away, and the bold Taxable line is what would flow into your return.

It is an estimate, and it moves with the price. Treat it as a planning number.

What you should see

One holding, fully explained. Thirty CBA shares bought at an average of $95.90, worth $3,255.00 today, sitting on $378.03 of unrealised gain after 1y 165d. And underneath, the tax version of the same story: $3,255.00 of proceeds against a FIFO cost base of $2,876.97, a $378.03 gain, a $189.01 discount, and $189.02 that would actually be taxable.

That is the whole "should I sell?" calculation on one screen, before you have to make the decision for real.

Common gotchas

• The CGT Discount badge means the holding has passed 12 months. That is what puts a number on the 50% discount line instead of a zero. Sell a day early and the badge reads No Discount, the discount line comes to $0.00, and the full gain is assessable.
• The estimate uses FIFO and today's price, so it changes every time the market does. It is a planning number, not a filed one.
• Avg cost is rounded for display at $95.90, while the cost base is worked out from the actual parcels. That is why $2,876.97 is not exactly 30 × $95.90.
• FIFO matches the oldest parcels first, so a partial sale you made earlier has already consumed part of your original buy. The cost base here reflects what is left, not what you originally paid for the whole lot.
• This page covers one holding at a time. For the financial-year totals across everything you own, you need the CGT report.
• SavvyPortfolio calculates, it does not advise. Check anything you plan to act on with a registered tax agent.

What's next

Capital gains are only half of what the ATO wants from a share investor. The other half is dividend income and the franking credits attached to it. How to record a dividend and its franking credits covers the form on the Dividends tab, including the per-share trap that catches most people the first time.

If you want the rules behind the arithmetic on the CGT Position card, how to calculate CGT on shares in Australia walks through cost base, FIFO and the 50% discount in full.