J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2013: For Preparing Your 2012 Tax Return

5.8 Sample Entries of Capital Asset Sales on Form 8949 and on Schedule D

You report 2012 sales and other dispositions of capital assets on Form 8949. This includes sales of securities, redemptions of mutual-fund shares, worthless personal loans, sales of stock rights and warrants, sales of land held for investment, and sales of personal residences where part of the gain does not qualify for the home sale exclusion (29.1). After entering your short-term transactions in Part I of Form 8949 and long-term transactions in Part II, the total sales price and basis amounts are transferred to Schedule D where net gain or loss is figured.

Although capital gain distributions from mutual funds and REITs are generally reported as long-term capital gains on Line 13 of Schedule D, investors who receive such distributions but have no other capital gains or losses to report may generally report the distributions directly on Form 1040 or 1040A without having to file Schedule D; see 32.8 for details.

For 2012, the favorable maximum capital gain rates (5.3) apply to net capital gain (net long-term capital gain in excess of net short-term capital loss) from Schedule D, and also to qualified dividends (4.1). Although qualified dividends are subject to the same favorable maximum rates as net capital gain, they are not entered as long-term gains in Part II of Schedule D. The favorable rates are applied to qualified dividends when tax liability is computed on either the Qualified Dividends and Capital ...