Year-End Checklist for Investors
First, Find Your Actual Deadline
Most people assume 31 December. For plenty of European investors that is right, and for some it is months out.
Germany. The tax year is the calendar year. Annual returns are due by 31 July of the following year, extended to late February of the second following year if a certified tax adviser prepares it (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Germany, reviewed 30 March 2026).
Romania. Also a calendar tax year, with the annual return due by 25 May of the following year (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Romania, reviewed 30 March 2026).
The United Kingdom. The tax year runs 6 April to 5 April, not January to December (GOV.UK).
Those are illustrations of how much the answer moves, not guidance for anyone living there. Two things follow. The date your tax year closes is the one that governs whether something counts for this year, and it is not the same as the date you file. Confirm both for your own country before treating any of the below as urgent.
The Review Checklist
Total up what you actually realized this year.
Not what your portfolio is worth, and not what it is up by. What you sold, and the gain or loss on each sale. This is the number nearly every rule operates on, and most people have never looked at it in isolation. See realized vs unrealized gains if the distinction is not yet second nature.
Check whether losses are sitting unrealized.
Positions that are down do nothing for you while you hold them. Whether realizing one before the year closes is worth doing, and whether you could buy back afterwards, is a national question. Tax-loss harvesting covers the mechanism and, more usefully, the specific questions to put to an accountant.
Reconcile dividends and the withholding tax already deducted.
Dividends usually arrive net of tax withheld at source, sometimes in another country and another currency. That withholding is tax you have already paid and may count against what you owe at home, but only if you can show what it was.
Look at currency gains separately from asset gains.
A foreign holding that is flat in its own currency can still show a gain in yours. It is a real gain and potentially taxable, and it is invisible unless you separate the two effects. Currency gain explains the split; capital gains basics works through why it matters at year end.
Confirm your cost basis records are complete, per lot.
Especially for anything you bought at more than one price. If your records hold only a blended average, you cannot tell which purchase a sale came from, and that changes the gain. This is the item most likely to be quietly broken and the hardest to fix retrospectively.
Note any splits or corporate actions.
A split changes your share count and your cost per share without you doing anything, and leaves every per-share figure in your own records on the old scale. Stock splits explained covers what breaks.
Export the year's transactions before you need them.
Do it while the year is fresh and while you still remember what the odd entries were. An accountant asking questions in April about a transaction from the previous March is a worse conversation than the one you can have with yourself now.
What Not to Do in a Hurry
The genuine risk at year end is not missing a deadline. It is making a permanent investment decision for a temporary tax reason.
Selling a holding to realize a loss changes your portfolio. If you would not otherwise have sold it, you have altered your allocation, possibly your risk, and possibly your long-term return, in exchange for a saving that is often a deferral rather than an elimination. That trade is sometimes worth making. It is never worth making in a rush on 28 December because an article implied you should.
The same applies in reverse to holding on. Refusing to sell something you have wanted out of for months, purely because the gain would land in this tax year rather than next, is the same mistake wearing different clothes.
How Turbobulls Makes the Review Quick
Most of the checklist is a data problem, and the data either exists or it does not.
Cost basis is tracked per lot, so each purchase keeps its own price and date. Realized and unrealized gains are separated, which is items one and two. Dividend transactions carry the withholding tax that was deducted, and income figures are reported net of it in your base currency, which is item three. Splits are applied retroactively, so item six is handled without you noticing it happened.
Item four, the currency split, sits on the paid plan, as does the per-holding realized-versus-unrealized breakdown. Trailing twelve-month and indicated annual income are on every plan.
Item seven is the easy one: export is available on every plan, free included, and is never paywalled. Whatever else you decide, getting the year's transactions out of the system and into a file is not something you have to pay for.
Have the Records Ready Before You Need Them
The Full Picture: Read These Next
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: When does my tax year end?
Check with your own tax authority rather than assuming. Germany and Romania both use the calendar year; the UK runs to 5 April. The date that governs whether a sale counts for this year is when the tax year closes, which is a separate date from the filing deadline.Q: Do I need to report unrealized gains?
Under a realization-based capital gains system, gains are generally reported when you dispose of something rather than while you hold it. Some countries tax investment wealth through other mechanisms, so confirm what applies to you rather than assuming holdings are invisible.Q: What if my broker's numbers disagree with mine?
Reconcile it now rather than in filing season. The usual causes are corporate actions applied on one side but not the other, fees included in one figure and not the other, and foreign-currency transactions converted at different rates or on different dates. All three are much easier to unpick while you still remember the trades.Turbobulls is a tracking and analytics tool, not an investment adviser. Nothing here is investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Do your own research or consult a licensed professional.
Close the Year on Accurate Numbers
Turbobulls keeps the record your return depends on: what you realized, what each lot cost, what was withheld, and at what exchange rate.
- Realized and unrealized gains separated across the portfolio
- Cost basis per lot, with purchase prices and dates preserved
- Dividend withholding tax recorded per payment
- Splits applied retroactively so share counts stay consistent
- Export on every plan, free included, never paywalled
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Dividend Withholding Tax Explained
Why your dividend arrives smaller than announced, which part of the tax you can actually reduce, and which part is buried inside your funds.
Capital Gains Tax Basics for Investors
What actually triggers capital gains tax, how the gain is calculated, why currency movements can be taxable, and the records you need to keep.
Tax-Loss Harvesting Explained for EU Investors
How harvesting losses against gains works, a worked example in euros, and why the US wash-sale advice you keep reading may not apply where you live.