TrackMyShares

EOFY 2026 share investor checklist: what to do before 30 June

TrackMyShares Team

End of financial year 2025-26 lands on Tuesday, 30 June 2026. If you hold ASX shares, ETFs, international stocks, or crypto, the work you do in the next ten weeks decides how much tax you pay and how painful lodgement feels in July.

This checklist covers every step that matters. Some of it (like tax-loss selling) has to happen by 30 June or you miss the window entirely. Other items (like reconciling AMIT statements) can wait until July but are much easier if you prepare now.

The short version

If you only do five things before 30 June 2026:

  1. Reconcile your cost base. Every buy, sell, DRP, split, and corporate action needs to be in one place with the right date and price.
  2. Decide on tax-loss selling. If you have losers worth crystallising, 30 June is the deadline. The wash sale anti-avoidance rule still applies.
  3. Confirm franking credit accuracy. Check every dividend you received has the correct franking and DRP treatment.
  4. Plan for AMIT/AMMA statement adjustments. ETFs issue AMMA statements from late July onward. Knowing your holdings now means you can process them as they arrive.
  5. Export or generate a draft capital gains report. Reviewing it in June gives you time to fix errors before your accountant sees it.

The rest of this post walks through each in detail, plus the odds and ends most investors forget.

1. Reconcile every transaction

Nothing else on this list works if your transaction history is wrong. The ATO expects your capital gains report to tie back to actual trades (dates, quantities, prices, fees). If you spent the year adding trades by hand, or importing from two brokers into a spreadsheet, now is the time to catch gaps.

What to check:

  • Every buy and sell has the correct trade date (not settlement date), quantity, gross consideration, and brokerage. Brokerage is part of your cost base on buys and reduces your proceeds on sells.
  • Every dividend is recorded, with the franking percentage and any withholding tax on foreign dividends.
  • Every DRP is recorded as a BUY using the allocation price on the DRP statement, not the market price on the day.
  • Every corporate action (splits, consolidations, mergers, spinoffs, demergers, bonus issues, capital returns) is applied. Capital returns in particular adjust your cost base and silently change future CGT if missed.
  • Every transfer between brokers is recorded as TRANSFER_IN/OUT, not as a sell-and-rebuy (which would trigger a phantom CGT event).

If you use TrackMyShares, open your portfolio's transaction history and filter by date range for FY2025-26 (1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026). Anything missing needs to go in before EOFY. The importing transactions guide covers how to pull CSVs from CommSec, Stake, SelfWealth, Superhero, Interactive Brokers, and CMC. For multi-year files, the CSV merge tool combines them into a single import.

If you have held shares for years with no records, start from your broker's holding statement as at 30 June 2025 and work forward. For parcels you bought before 1985, the ATO treats them as pre-CGT and no cost base is needed. For parcels acquired after, you need an actual cost base, and "I don't know" eventually becomes the broker's best estimate.

2. Understand the CGT events for this financial year

A CGT event is triggered when you dispose of an asset. The most common events for share investors are:

  • A1 (sale or transfer): you sold shares to someone else.
  • C2 (cancellation or expiry): a company went into liquidation or administration and your shares were cancelled.
  • E4/G1 (capital return/non-assessable distribution): an ETF or LIC paid a non-assessable amount that reduces your cost base. If the reductions exceed cost base, the excess is a gain.
  • H2 (right or option): rights issues and some renounceable offers.
  • K3 (death or bankruptcy): out of scope here but worth flagging if applicable.

For each CGT event in FY2025-26, you need the date, the proceeds (or deemed proceeds), and the cost base (or reduced cost base for a loss). The cost base includes the original purchase price, brokerage, and any cost-base adjustments from AMIT statements, DRPs, and capital returns.

3. Decide on tax-loss selling (the 30 June deadline)

If you hold shares or ETFs at a loss and you expect to realise gains elsewhere this year, selling them before 30 June crystallises the capital loss and lets you offset it against gains.

Rules to keep in mind:

  • The loss is useful only against capital gains, not ordinary income. If you have no gains this year, the loss carries forward indefinitely.
  • The ATO can apply the anti-avoidance rule if it looks like you sold purely to create a loss and immediately bought back the same asset. There is no bright-line "30 day rule" in Australia (unlike the US), but the ATO has successfully challenged short-interval wash sales under Part IVA. See our wash sale rule in Australia post for the detail.
  • Apply losses in the right order. Current-year losses are applied against current-year gains before the 50% CGT discount; only the remaining discounted gain is then reduced. Applying in the wrong order can cost you.

The tax-loss harvesting tool (Pro plan) lists every parcel currently sitting at a loss, the unrealised amount, and whether the parcel is short-term or long-term. For a structured walkthrough, read tax-loss selling ASX before 30 June 2026.

One thing to avoid: selling a winner you love just to bank a 50% discount "while you can". The discount is a FY-based concept (held >12 months at sale date), not a rate that expires.

4. Apply the 50% CGT discount correctly

If you held an asset for more than 12 months and you are an individual or a trust, 50% of the gain is tax-free. For complying super funds and SMSFs, the discount is 33.33%. For companies, there is no discount.

The common mistakes:

  • Wrong holding period. The 12-month clock starts the day after purchase and ends the day before sale (365 days minimum in between). Miscounting the boundary is the single most common error in DIY spreadsheets.
  • Applying to the wrong parcel. If you bought a parcel in February and another in July, and sold half in August, which parcel did you sell? Under FIFO it is the older one. Under specific identification it can be either, if you record the choice clearly.
  • Forgetting adjusted cost base. DRPs, AMIT adjustments, and capital returns all change cost base. Use the adjusted cost base, not the original purchase price.
  • Applying discount before losses. Losses offset the gross gain first. Only then do you discount.

For worked examples, see how to calculate capital gains on shares in Australia and the deep dive on the 12-month CGT discount rule.

5. Check franking credits on every dividend

Franking credits reduce the tax you pay on Australian company dividends. If your marginal rate is lower than 30%, you get a refund of the excess. SMSFs in pension phase, retirees on low incomes, and complying super funds often get large franking credit refunds each year.

Checks for EOFY:

  • Every Australian dividend has a franking percentage recorded. 100% franked means the company paid 30% company tax on the underlying profit; unfranked means it did not.
  • Franking credits should equal dividend amount × (30/70) × franking percentage. Your broker statement or dividend notice shows this calculated for you, but errors happen.
  • DRP dividends still have franking credits. If you reinvested the dividend, the franking credit still counts towards your tax return. It is separate from the cost base of the new shares.
  • ETF distributions are mixed. An ETF distribution usually bundles franked dividends, unfranked dividends, foreign income, capital gains, and returns of capital. The AMMA statement (next section) breaks this out for tax purposes.

The franking credits explained post walks through how credits are calculated. If you are eligible for a refund and you do not lodge a tax return for other reasons, the ATO's Franking Credit Refund form lets you claim without lodging a full return; see how to claim a franking credit refund in 2026.

6. Prepare for AMIT and AMMA statements

Most Australian ETFs and managed funds operate under the Attribution Managed Investment Trust (AMIT) regime (Division 276). Once a year they send an AMMA (AMIT Member Annual) statement breaking down the year's distributions into components: Australian source income, foreign income, franked dividends, capital gains (discounted and non-discounted), and "tax-deferred" or "non-assessable" amounts that adjust your cost base.

AMMA statements are usually issued between late July and September. You cannot finalise your tax return before yours arrives. But you can prepare by:

  • Listing every AMIT fund you held during FY2025-26. Vanguard (VAS, VGS, VDHG), BetaShares (A200, NDQ, DHHF), iShares (IOZ, IVV, IAA), VanEck (MVW), Magellan, and most large ETFs are AMITs.
  • Keeping the distribution statements already received during the year. Interim distributions are estimates; the AMMA reconciles them.
  • Understanding that AMMA adjustments can both increase and decrease cost base. Tax-deferred amounts lower it; some AMIT upward adjustments raise it. These affect future CGT, not just this year's income.

For the walkthrough of actually processing an AMMA statement, see how to read an AMMA statement. TrackMyShares stores AMIT adjustments against your holdings; the AMIT statements help guide covers entering them.

7. Foreign income and withholding tax

If you hold US shares or ETFs, you received dividends net of a withholding tax (15% under the Australia-US tax treaty for most investors who lodged a W-8BEN). That withholding is a foreign income tax offset you can claim against your Australian tax.

Checks:

  • Every foreign dividend has the gross amount recorded, not just the net received. You declare the gross as assessable income, then claim the withheld tax as an offset.
  • W-8BEN is current. Most brokers require renewal every three years. If yours lapsed, your withholding jumped to 30% and you cannot claim the excess 15% as a treaty benefit; only the 15% under the treaty rate is creditable.
  • Foreign currency conversion. Dividends are converted at the ATO's daily exchange rate on receipt, or you can use the annual average if consistent. Mixing methods in the same return is not allowed.

See multi-currency investing: how FX gains and losses are taxed in Australia for the full treatment, and how dividends are taxed in the US if you also need the US-side perspective.

8. Handle DRPs and bonus issues

Dividend reinvestment plans (DRPs or DRIPs) reinvest your dividend into new shares. Three things investors forget:

  • The full dividend is still assessable income. You are taxed as if you received cash. The franking credit still applies.
  • New DRP shares get their own cost base equal to the dividend amount (plus any discount the company applied). Their holding period starts from the DRP allocation date.
  • Record every DRP allocation separately. If you sell part of your holding later, specific identification versus FIFO against all these little parcels can change the tax outcome significantly.

Bonus issues are different: they are generally not assessable income, but the cost base of your original shares is spread across the combined holding, which reduces the cost base per share.

The DRIP tax implications post covers both the AU and US rules.

9. Crypto, precious metals, and foreign shares

The ATO treats crypto as a CGT asset for most investors. Every disposal (selling for AUD, swapping for another coin, using to buy goods) is a CGT event. Staking rewards and airdrops are ordinary income at receipt, and the AUD value on that day becomes the cost base of the received tokens.

Precious metals (bullion, coins) are CGT assets too. The personal use asset exemption almost never applies to investment-purpose holdings.

Foreign shares outside the US are taxed the same way as US shares, with withholding rates varying by treaty.

If you track all of these in TrackMyShares, the CGT report groups them correctly. See crypto tax in Australia 2026 for the full deep dive on crypto.

10. Think about super contributions before 30 June

Out of scope for this post, but share investors often forget: the concessional contribution cap is $30,000 for FY2025-26 (including employer SG). If you have room and you want a deduction, a personal deductible contribution lodged with a Notice of Intent before you lodge can reduce your tax bill materially. Check current ATO guidance before acting; the cap and rules are updated occasionally.

11. Generate a draft capital gains report in June

This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do. Run the full CGT report for FY2025-26 in mid-June, with what you know today. You will find missing transactions, wrong DRP prices, dividends posted under the wrong symbol, and occasionally a ghost parcel that never existed.

What to look for in the draft:

  • Unreasonable cost bases. A holding showing zero cost base or a negative one.
  • Phantom CGT events. Transfers between brokers recorded as sells.
  • Missing DRPs or splits. Cost base divergence from your broker's statement.
  • Mismatched franking. Sum of franking credits on the report vs. your running total through the year.

Fixing in June is cheap. Fixing during tax lodgement with your accountant waiting is not.

In TrackMyShares, the tax report page generates this with one click. See how to generate a tax report for the specific walkthrough.

12. What to send your accountant (or keep for yourself)

When you lodge, you or your accountant need:

  • A capital gains summary per CGT event (date, proceeds, cost base, gross gain/loss, discount applied, net gain).
  • A dividend summary (amount, franking credit, withholding tax, date, security).
  • AMMA statements for every AMIT fund.
  • Foreign income and foreign tax paid summaries.
  • Supporting transaction history for anything the ATO might query (they rarely ask, but when they do, you need the proof).

If you use MyTax, this maps directly to the Capital Gains, Dividends, and Managed Funds sections. The ATO MyTax share income walkthrough covers exactly which field each figure goes into.

13. Odds and ends most people miss

  • Record keeping is required for five years after the tax year for which you relied on the record. For long-held shares, you may be keeping cost base records for decades.
  • Shares you gifted or inherited trigger CGT events with deemed market value. Easy to forget at EOFY.
  • Fractional shares (common with Stake, Superhero, Pearler) are CGT assets like any other, and the small quantities can create dozens of tiny parcels that require FIFO tracking. See how to track fractional shares across brokers.
  • Delisted shares you still hold can create a capital loss once the company is formally dissolved (not before). The corporate actions help guide covers how to mark delistings.
  • Currency-denominated brokerage accounts (like Stake USD) need conversion at the daily rate for each transaction, not an annualised rate.

A week-by-week plan

If you want to spread this over the next ten weeks:

  • Weeks 1-2 (mid to late April): reconcile transaction history. Fix import gaps, missing DRPs, and corporate actions.
  • Weeks 3-4 (early May): review unrealised losses. Decide on tax-loss selling. Don't execute yet.
  • Weeks 5-6 (mid to late May): check franking credit totals. Confirm W-8BEN is current for US holdings.
  • Weeks 7-8 (early June): execute tax-loss sells. Generate the draft CGT report. Fix errors.
  • Weeks 9-10 (mid to late June): final reconciliation. Last-minute contributions or sells. Save the final draft report for your accountant.
  • Post-30 June: wait for AMMA statements. Process them as they arrive. Finalise and lodge in July.

Where to go from here

TrackMyShares generates every report above (capital gains, dividend income, franking credits, foreign income, AMIT adjustments) in one place. Start a 7-day free trial and run your FY2025-26 draft this week. The earlier you see the numbers, the less painful lodgement becomes.

This post is general information, not tax advice. For your specific situation, talk to a registered tax agent.