Method and apparatus for enabling small investors with a portfolio of securities to manage taxable events within the portfolio

A computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to participate in actions comprising:

• maintaining a tax basis registry storing a basis for each asset/liability;
• calculating a potential tax consequence for each asset/liability in the registry selected by the user for potential trade and the potential proceeds from the potential trade;
• presenting a graphical representation of at least two dimensions of an overall tax consequence for each possible combination of trade of the selected assets/liabilities and potential proceeds resulting from each possible combination of trade;
• and
• interacting graphically with the user to enable the user to indicate a desired combination of tax consequences and potential proceeds.

An apparatus for enabling a user to determine capital asset tax consequences from selling a plurality of securities within a portfolio of securities and to obtain a desired capital asset tax consequence and a desired proceeds, said apparatus comprising:

• means for calculating a potential capital asset tax consequence and a potential proceeds resulting from trading each of the plurality of securities;
• means for determining a series of sums of the capital asset tax consequences that would result from various combinations of trades of particular subsets of the securities from among the plurality of securities;
• means for ascertaining potential proceeds associated with each of the series of sums resulting from the various combinations of trades of the particular subsets of the securities from among the plurality of securities used by the determining means;
• means for displaying to a user in a graph having at least two dimensions the series of sums and the associated potential proceeds, wherein one axis represents the capital asset tax consequence and another axis represents the proceeds resulting from trading the securities, each of the sums being plotted as a point in a graph, and each point having an attribute related to a potential capital asset tax consequence and another attribute related to the potential proceeds resulting from a trade of the securities underlying each of the points.