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GLD, SLV, SGOL. These are all examples of Commodity ETF's. They aren't ETF's of stock, they are ETF's that hold the underlying commodity of Silver or Gold. That means they bring along tax issues that stock ETF's don't. Hopefully your club doesn't own any of them. If you are considering them, now is your chance to avoid lots and lots of extra work at tax time.

Our Before You Invest page lists more of them.

If your club has/had an investment in these, there are many calculations and manual adjustments you need to make to your records and your tax forms to account for and do correct tax reporting on them every year. (Not just the year you sell them)

With the new cost basis reporting and form 8949, things have gotten that much more complicated. If you hold them, here's an example of what you are going to have to do manually to adjust your accounting and your tax forms:

Investment Club Commodity ETF Accounting and Tax Reporting Adjustments

If you want to keep your club accounting the simplest so you can spend your time learning about investing rather than accounting, we'd recommend that you avoid investing in commodity ETF's.

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