Basis
  
This is a financial term which is widely used and has many different meanings. In most circumstances, it refers to "cost" or "tax" basis, i.e. the difference between expenses and price when calculating the tax implications of a transaction.
Here's a really simple example: Vanessa buys a few shares of Flying High Medicines LLC. After any fees, expenses and her broker's hefty commission (because she decided to go the expensive route instead of trading for free through an e-brokerage), her cost basis is the leftover purchase price. This will be used to calculated capital gains or losses in the event she decides to sell her shares. If she makes a nice haul from the sale of her shares, she'll be, uh...flying high.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is Tax Basis?8 Views
Finance allah shmoop What is tax basis Well your basis
is your cost Your costs for assessing how much you
owe when the tax man coming you bought a thousand
shares of whatever dot com at twelve bucks a share
in its eye po and huzzah Three years later the
stock is at thirty You decide whatever dot com is
now passe because a kardashians said so it'll be over
taken by whenever dot com and you want to sell
So you dio and you live in a thirty percent
marginal tax blue state And that is your federal tax
rates in twenty percent But then you add in ten
percent for state taxes and whatever's left for obamacare and
you pay about thirty percent tax on your gains Well
you paid twelve grand to buy the stock and after
the sale you took in thirty grand when you sold
it for a gain of eighteen thousand dollars Your tax
basis on those shares is twelve grand so you pay
thirty percent tax on the eighteen grand of gain or
fifty four hundred dollars to net from the sale of
thirty thousand dollars worth of stock How much Yeah twenty
Four thousand six hundred dollars He fancy math Had you
just gotten those shares free I'ii they were gifted to
you and you had no tax basis or a tax
basis of zero dollars a share Well then your gain
would have been from zero to thirty grand or a
gain of thirty thousand dollars to then be taxed at
thirty percent or nine grand in taxes to net just
twenty one thousand dollars after the sale So having ah
high tax basis or at least being able teo point
toe one saves you money when the tax man coming
and well that's pretty much it alright he's gone Now
you can all come out Come on it's Okay it's 00:01:53.698 --> [endTime] safe
Up Next
What is a basis point? Basis points are how changes in financial securities are described. “The stock dropped 100 points” actually means that t...
What is Cost Basis? For accounting purposes, the cost basis is the amount invested at the time of asset purchase. That is subtracted from the sale...
When you realize a gain or loss, it means that you turn an investment into cash. Thrilling, we know.