Return-of-capital calculator
How much of your payouts came back as return of capital, and what’s your cost basis now? Pick a fund, enter your shares and the day you bought them.
It runs in your browser, on the same engine as the Gooseberry app. What you type never leaves this page: it only downloads the fund’s public payout file.
How it works
- Which payouts count. You receive a distribution if you owned the shares before its ex-date. The calculator adds up every payout since your purchase date that has already been paid.
- Where the split comes from. For each payout, the return of capital per share is the issuer’s own figure: the final figure (Form 8937, year-end tax statement or annual report) where Gooseberry has it, otherwise the monthly 19a-1 estimate. A payout that a published Form 8937 leaves out counts as 0%.
- What it does to your basis. In a taxable account, return of capital isn’t taxed when you receive it, but it lowers your cost basis, so more of the sale price is gain when you sell. Once your basis reaches zero, further return of capital is taxed as a capital gain. In an IRA it changes nothing you report.
- What it assumes. One purchase, still held, with payouts taken in cash. Gooseberry tracks every lot, sale and reinvestment for you, and keeps the numbers current as new payouts are declared.
General information, not tax advice. Issuers revise their figures, and your Form 1099-DIV and your broker’s cost-basis records are the official ones. See estimates and final figures.