Do i have to pay capital gains tax if i sell ESPP stock from ESPP account and bought same stock from individual broker account

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Vishnu Vardhan Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/128303 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Do i have to pay capital gains tax if i sell ESPP stock from ESPP account and bought same stock from individual broker account? Here is an example: I have 100 shares of ESPP stock allocated at 50$ in 2019 October I sell those 100 shares from ESPP account for 80$ in 2020 June and i re-purchase same stock from my Individual broker account for 80$ on same day (or) some other day in 2020. I wont sell these shares again in 2020. In this case i have same number of shares by 2020 end also. Since i was allocated for 50$ and sold for 80$, then it looks like profit 100X(80$-50$)=3000$. Do i need to pay tax for that 3000$ or there is no need to report since i have same amount of shares and same stock? Please advise, Thanks in advance!

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Craig W Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/128310 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Yes, you will owe capital gains tax. Even if you sold and then re-purchased the shares within the same account, the answer would be the same. The only reason capital gains are not taxable is if they occur within a tax-advantaged account like a 401(k) or IRA. Additionally, there is something called a wash sale that prevents you from realizing a capital loss if you repurchase substantially identical shares within +/- 30 days of the sale. But neither of these apply to you.