Tax Form for Brokerage Acct?

Taxes
#1

Last summer while I was learning about investing, I got a little too excited and opened up a brokerage account with Vanguard before I really knew what I was doing.

Later I realized I should’ve opened a Roth IRA to avoid capital gains tax that I would have to pay with the brokerage account.

I haven’t touched my brokerage account since I bought my first two stocks. It’s now tax season and I didn’t receive any tax forms for my brokerage account so I figured I was good to do my taxes. I did my taxes online and wasn’t asked about brokerage account so I went on without including them.

Did I just majorly screw up? Was I supposed to receive a tax form for the brokerage account or are you supposed to manually insert how much money you made off your brokerage investments on your taxes?

#2

If you didn’t sell any stock, you will not receive any tax form. You only need to report gains/ losses to IRS if you sell stock. If you only bought stock, no need to report anything - hence no tax form.

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#3

This makes me feel a million times better! Thanks so much!

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#4

That’s not fully correct! Those stocks you bought may have paid dividends. If so, they would be taxable for the previous tax year. Vanguard would provide you a 1099-DIV form that shows how much you made that you can input into your tax software or provide to your accountant.

In Vanguard if you click:

  • My Accounts
  • Tax Center

On that page you should see a list of tax forms. If you have one and you didn’t enter it, it probably SHOULD have been, but may not be a huge deal depending on the amount. Technically you would file an amendment to your taxes (your tax software or accountant should be able to help you with this) and it’s still early enough that there would be no penalty. Even if it’s late, the IRS usually isn’t too hard on this stuff unless you’re purposely evading large amounts of taxes.

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