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Suppose a person is using Robinhood app for stock trading. He puts $10000. His current portfolio value is $9500 meaning he has suffered an overall loss of $500. He did stock trading say 50 times out which in 25 he made losses and 25 he made gains. But overall he made a loss of $500.

Does Robinhood calculate fees and taxes over the total gain/loss or per-transaction?

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    Gains and losses are calculated for tax purposes based on the actual performance of specific transactions, not on an account balance.
    – quid
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 20:24
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    Taxes? or fees? A brokerage or a Robinhood app cannot charge you taxes, they can/might charge you fees.
    – Dilip Sarwate
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 20:24

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I don't see a tag for United States, so I'm having to assume this is US taxes. It doesn't matter what app you use, IRS trades are all calculated the same.

First, you have to report each trade on a 8949 and from that the totals go into a schedule D. Short term trades are stocks that you've kept exactly one year or less, long term trades are for 1 year + 1 day or more. Trades where you sold a stock for a loss, then bought that stock back again under 30 days don't get to count as a loss. This only affects realized capital gains and losses, you don't count fees.

First, take all of your short term gains then offset them by all of your short term losses. Do the same for long term gains and losses. Short and long term gains are taxed at different rates. You can deduct losses from short term to your long term and vice versa. Then you can deduct the total losses up to $3000 (household, $1500 married, filing separately) per year on your regular income taxes or other dividend taxes. If you have over $3000 in losses, then you need to carry that over to subsequent years.

Edited per Dave's comments: thanks Dave

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  • Since 2011 you report the individual trades on form 8949 and the totals on schedule D. The yearly limit on capital loss against other income is still $3,000 for single (and HoH) but $1,500 for married filing separately. When a wash loss is excluded it is not lost but added to basis for the new holding, thus in effect deferred until you sell that (unless you die first). Otherwise nice summary.
    – dave_thompson_085
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 9:45

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