Does Robinhood calculate fees and taxes over the total gain/loss or per-transaction?
I don't see a tag for United States, so I'm having to assume this is US taxes.  It doesn't matter what app you use, IRS trades are all calculated the same. First, you have to report each trade on a 8949 and from that the totals go into a schedule D.  Short term trades are stocks that you've kept exactly one year or less, long term trades are for 1 year + 1 day or more.  Trades where you sold a stock for a loss, then bought that stock back again under 30 days don't get to count as a loss.  This only affects realized capital gains and losses, you don't count fees. First, take all of your short term gains then offset them by all of your short term losses.  Do the same for long term gains and losses.  Short and long term gains are taxed at different rates.  You can deduct losses from short term to your long term and vice versa.  Then you can deduct the total losses up to $3000 (household, $1500 married, filing separately) per year on your regular income taxes or other dividend taxes.  If you have over $3000 in losses, then you need to carry that over to subsequent years. Edited per Dave's comments: thanks Dave
Vanguard (and probably other mutual fund brokers as well) offers easy-to-read performance charts that show the total change in value of a $10K investment over time.  This includes the fair market value of the fund plus any distributions (i.e. dividends) paid out.  On Vanguard's site they also make a point to show the impact of fees in the chart, since their low fees are their big selling point. Some reasons why a dividend is preferable to selling shares: no loss of voting power, no transaction costs, dividends may have better tax consequences for you than capital gains. NOTE:  If your fund is underperforming the benchmark, it is not due to the payment of dividends.  Funds do not pay their own dividends; they only forward to shareholders the dividends paid out by the companies in which they invest.  So the fair market value of the fund should always reflect the fair market value of the companies it holds, and those companies' shares are the ones that are fluctuating when they pay dividends. If your fund is underperforming its benchmark, then that is either because it is not tracking the benchmark closely enough or because it is charging high fees.  The fact that the underperformance you're seeing appears to be in the amount of dividends paid is a coincidence. Check out this example Vanguard performance chart for an S&P500 index fund.  Notice how if you add the S&P500 index benchmark to the plot you can't even see the difference between the two -- the fund is designed to track the benchmark exactly.  So when IBM (or whoever) pays out a dividend, the index goes down in value and the fund goes down in value. "I'd agree that this can seem a little unfair, but it's an unavoidable consequence of the necessary practicality of paying out dividends periodically (rather than continuously), and differential taxation of income and capital gains. To see more clearly what's going on here, consider buying stock in a company with extremely simple economics: it generates a certain, constant earnings stream equivalent to $10 per share per annum, and redistributes all of that profit as periodic dividends (let's say once annually). Assume there's no intrinsic growth, and that the firm's instrinsic value (which we'll say is $90 per share) is completely neutral to any other market factors. Under these economics, this stock price will show a ""sawtooth"" evolution, accruing from $90 to $100 over the course of a year, and resetting back down to $90 after each dividend payment. Now, if I am invested in this stock for some period of time, the fair outcome would be that I receive an appropriately time-weighted share of the $10 annual earnings per share, less my tax. If I am invested for an exact calendar year, this works as I'd expect: the stock price on any given day in the year will be the same as it was exactly one year earlier, so I'll realise zero capital gain, but I'll have collected a $10 taxed dividend along the way. On the other hand, what if I am invested for exactly half a year, spanning a dividend payment? I receive a dividend payment of $10 less tax, but I make a capital loss of -$5. Overall, pre-tax, I'm up $5 per share as expected. However, the respective tax treatment of the dividend payment (which is classed as income) and the capital gains is likely to be different. In particular, to benefit from the ""negative"" taxation of the capital loss I need to have some positive capital gain elsewhere to offset it - if I can't do that, I'm much worse off compared to half the full-year return. Further, even if I can offset against a gain elsewhere the effective taxation rates are likely to be different - but note that this could work for or against me (if my capital gains rate is greater than my income tax rate I'd actually benefit). And if I'm invested for half a year, but not spanning a dividend, I make $5 of pure capital gains, and realise a different effective taxation rate again. In an ideal world I'd agree that the effective taxation rate wouldn't depend on the exact timing of my transactions like this, but in reality it's unavoidable in the interests of practicality. And so long as the rules are clear, I wouldn't say it's unfair per se, it just adds a bit of complexity." There is no generic formula as such, but you can work it out using all known incomes and expenses and by making some educated assuption. You should generaly know your buying costs, which include the purchase price, legal fees, taxes (in Australia we have Stamp Duty, which is a large state based tax when you purchase a property). Other things to consider include estimates for any repairs and/or renovations. Also, you should look at the long term growth in your area and use this as an estimate of your potential growth over the period you wish to hold the property, and estimate the agent fees if you were to sell, and the depreciation on the building. These things, including the agent fees when selling and building depreciation, will all be added or deducted to your cost base to determine the amount of capital gain when and if you sell the property. You then need to multiply this gain by the capital gains tax rate to determine the capital gains tax you may have to pay. From all the items above you will be able to estimate the net capital gain (after all taxes) you could expect to make on the property over the period you are looking to hold it for. In regards to holding and renting the property, things you will need to consider include the rent, the long term growth of rent in your area, and all the expenses including, loan fees and interest, insurance, rates, land tax, and an estimate of the annual maintenance cost per year. Also, you would need to consider any depreciation deductions you can claim. Other things you will need to consider, is the change in these values as time goes by, and provide an estimate for these in your calculations. Any increase in the value of land will increase the amount of rates and the land tax you pay, and generally your insurance and maintenance costs will increase with time. However, your interest and mortgage repayments will reduce over time. Will your rent increases cover your increases in the expenses. From all the items above you should be able to work out an estimate of your net rental gain or loss for each year. Again do this for the number of years you are looking to hold the property for and then sum up the total to give a net profit or loss. If there is a net loss from the income, then you need to consider if the net capital gain will cover these losses and still give you a reasonable return over the period you will own the property. Below is a sample calculation showing most of the variables I have discussed. Selling one fund and buying another will incur capital gains tax on the sale for the amount of the gain. I'm not aware of any sort of exemption available due to you moving out of the country. However, long-term capital gains for low-tax-bracket taxpayers is 0%. As long as your total income including the gains fits within the 15% regular tax bracket, you don't pay any long-term capital gains. Options for you that I see to avoid taxes are: Note that even if you do sell it all, it's only the amount of gains that would take your income over the 15% normal tax bracket that would be taxed at the long-term rate of 15%, which may not end up being that much of a tax hit. It may be worth calculating just how bad it would be based on your actual income. Also note that all I'm saying here is for US federal income taxes. The state you most recently lived in may still charge taxes if you're still considered a resident there in some fashion, and I don't know if your new home's government may try to take a cut as well. Capital losses do mirror capital gains within their holding periods. An asset or investment this is certainly held for a year into the day or less, and sold at a loss, will create a short-term capital loss. A sale of any asset held for over a year to your day, and sold at a loss, will create a loss that is long-term. When capital gains and losses are reported from the tax return, the taxpayer must first categorize all gains and losses between long and short term, and then aggregate the sum total amounts for every single regarding the four categories. Then the gains that are long-term losses are netted against each other, therefore the same is done for short-term gains and losses. Then your net gain that is long-term loss is netted against the net short-term gain or loss. This final net number is then reported on Form 1040. Example Frank has the following gains and losses from his stock trading for the year: Short-term gains - $6,000 Long-term gains - $4,000 Short-term losses - $2,000 Long-term losses - $5,000 Net short-term gain/loss - $4,000 ST gain ($6,000 ST gain - $2,000 ST loss) Net long-term gain/loss - $1,000 LT loss ($4,000 LT gain - $5,000 LT loss) Final net gain/loss - $3,000 short-term gain ($4,000 ST gain - $1,000 LT loss)   Again, Frank can only deduct $3,000 of final net short- or long-term losses against other types of income for that year and must carry forward any remaining balance. The question is valid, you just need to work backwards. After how much money-time will the lower expense offset the one time fee?  Lower expenses will win given the right sum of money and right duration for the investment. Let's consider that transaction cost is 0(zero) for calculation. In the scenario you have stated, maximum profit that could be made is 55$, however risk is unlimited. Hedging can also be used to limit your losses, let's consider this scenario. Stock ABC trading @ 100$, I'll buy the stock ABC @ 100$ and buy a put option of ABC @ strike price 90$ for a premium of 5$ with an expiration date of 1 month. Possible outcomes I end up in a loss in 3 out of 4 scenarios, however my loss is limited to 15$, whereas profit is unlimited. "Are these all of the taxes or is there any additional taxes over these? Turn-over tax is not for retail investors. Other taxes are paid by the broker as part of transaction and one need not worry too much about it. Is there any ""Income tax"" to be paid for shares bought/holding shares? No for just buying and holding. However if you buy and sell; there would be a capital gain or loss. In stocks, if you hold a security for less than 1 year and sell it; it is classified as short term capital gain and taxes at special rate of 15%. The loss can be adjusted against any other short term gain. If held for more than year it is long term capital gain. For stock market, the tax is zero, you can't adjust long term losses in stock markets. Will the money received from selling shares fall under ""Taxable money for FY Income tax""? Only the gain [or loss] will be tread as income not the complete sale value. To calculate gain, one need to arrive a purchase price which is price of stock + Brokerage + STT + all other taxes. Similar the sale price will be Sales of stock - Brokerage - STT - all other taxes. The difference is the gain.  Will the ""Dividend/Bonus/Buy-back"" money fall under taxable category? Dividend is tax free to individual as the company has already paid dividend distribution tax. Bonus is tax free event as it does not create any additional value. Buy-Back is treated as sale of shares if you have participated. Will the share-holder pay ""Dividend Distribution Tax""? Paid by the company. What is ""Capital Gains""? Profit or loss of buying and selling a particular security."