Corporate actions
Splits, spin-offs, mergers, bonus shares: in a corporate action your holdings change without you buying or selling anything. Germany treats many of them as tax-neutral and carries the cost basis forward (§ 20 Abs. 4a EStG). How capi.tax handles them today is described below.
Why this is tricky with US brokers
A German broker applies § 20 Abs. 4a EStG automatically. Interactive Brokers and Tastytrade do not — they book the action as a plain quantity and cost change following US logic. The cost figure they report is often wrong for German purposes. What matters is preserving the original acquisition date: it drives the FIFO order and the grandfathering of pre-2009 holdings.
Split and reverse split
Tax-neutral. The total cost basis stays the same, only the per-share price is rescaled, and the acquisition date is retained. If a reverse split pays out a fraction in cash, that small part alone is a sale.
Spin-off (Abspaltung)
Receiving shares from a spin-off is usually tax-neutral: the original cost basis is split between the old and the new company, and the acquisition date carries over (§ 20 Abs. 4a S. 7 EStG). The Federal Fiscal Court confirmed this for US spin-offs too. The tricky part is the allocation ratio — usually based on the first exchange prices after the spin-off.
Merger and bonus shares
In a merger (old shares exchanged for new), cost basis and date carry forward; a cash component, by contrast, is taxable. Bonus shares granted without payment are often booked at €0 — tax then falls due only on the later sale. It is different for a scrip dividend, where you could choose between cash and shares: that is taxable as a dividend.
Return of capital: take care
A "return of capital" payment from a US company is not automatically the same as a German return of contributed capital (Einlagenrückgewähr). Since 2023 this requires a determination procedure at the Federal Central Tax Office (§ 27 Abs. 8 KStG). capi.tax cannot decide this for you — here, tax advice makes sense.
What capi.tax does here — and what it does not
capi.tax carries stock splits forward (at Tastytrade only splits with a whole-number ratio, see below), but no other corporate action (spin-off, merger, bonus shares, return of capital) — those are skipped and reported. For a split, quantity and per-share price are rescaled; total cost basis, fees and acquisition date stay, and FIFO order does not change. This applies to long and short positions.
- Tastytrade: the two booking rows of a split (old shares out, new shares in) are combined into one ratio and applied to your open lots. The export names no ratio, only the two quantities, so capi.tax applies only forward splits with a whole-number ratio (e.g. 2:1, 4:1, 10:1) and only if no other order or booking (e.g. a purchase or sale) of the same security sits on the split day. Reverse splits (e.g. 1:10) are never applied at Tastytrade, because a fraction paid out in cash cannot be seen in the rows and the ratio would then be wrong. The same goes for a ratio such as 3:2 and for a missing row; then the rows are skipped and you get a processing notice. Then check later sales of that security yourself.
- Interactive Brokers: with the Flex XML export, stock splits of shares are applied when the description names the ratio ("SPLIT 4 FOR 1"); non-whole ratios ("SPLIT 3 FOR 2") are taken over exactly. Cash for a fraction that the broker books as an ordinary sale is calculated as a sale from the oldest lot. Other corporate actions are not applied and you get a processing notice. With the CSV export a split is not applied either, and there is no notice. Bonds are the exception: capi.tax calculates the repayment at maturity as a sale, and reports a bond corporate action it cannot assign in the CSV too – see Bonds and accrued interest.
Spin-offs, mergers and bonus shares cannot currently be reproduced in the app. If you had one in the tax year, recalculate the affected sales yourself or have a tax advisor check them.
See also: What capi.tax does and does not calculate overall: Method & sources.