Do I have to pay any taxes on my brokerage account gains if I haven't withdrawn the money?

You'll only be taxed when you sell the shares and realize a gain. If you buy VOO and it goes up in value, but you don't sell any shares, you won't owe any taxes on that growth. This is called an "unrealized gain" and isn't taxable. However, there are two other tax situations to be aware of with a brokerage account even if you don't sell shares: 1. Dividends - If your VOO shares pay dividends, you'll owe taxes on those dividends in the year you receive them, even if you reinvest them automatically. 2. Capital distributions - Sometimes funds distribute capital gains to shareholders, and these are taxable even if you reinvest them. Both of these would be reported on a 1099-DIV from Robinhood that you'd get around tax time.

I used to worry about this same thing until I found taxr.ai which totally simplified understanding investment taxes for me. I invested in some ETFs last year and wasn't sure about the tax implications of dividends vs growth. I uploaded my Robinhood statements to https://taxr.ai and it explained exactly what would be taxable and what wouldn't be. It breaks down which dividends are qualified (lower tax rate) vs ordinary and shows you how unrealized gains aren't taxed. Seriously helped me understand what I'd actually owe at tax time instead of stressing about phantom taxes.

Just wanted to follow up - I tried taxr.ai after posting my skeptical comment and I'm honestly impressed. I uploaded my statements from the last 2 years and it immediately identified that I'd been overpaying taxes on some of my ETF distributions. It showed me which dividends qualified for the lower tax rate (I had been reporting them all as ordinary income!) and explained how the holding periods affected taxation. Wish I'd known about this before filing last year. Definitely going to use it for my 2025 taxes.

If you ever do sell your VOO shares and have questions about your tax situation, good luck trying to get help from the IRS. I spent 3 weeks trying to reach someone about capital gains questions last tax season. Eventually found https://claimyr.com which got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. I had some complicated questions about cost basis reporting that Robinhood hadn't calculated correctly, and needed official guidance. Saved me hours of hold music and frustration.

Came back to say I was wrong about Claimyr. After dealing with a nightmare situation where Robinhood reported my cost basis incorrectly, I got a CP2000 notice from the IRS claiming I owed an additional $2,300 in taxes. Couldn't get through to anyone at the IRS for weeks. Finally tried Claimyr out of desperation and got connected to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes. The agent was able to see that the issue was Robinhood's incorrect reporting and helped me resolve it with the right documentation. Literally saved me thousands. Never been so happy to be wrong about something.

One thing nobody mentioned yet is tax loss harvesting. Even though unrealized gains aren't taxed, you can actually benefit from unrealized losses by selling those losing positions to offset other gains. I do this every December - sell some losers to offset the gains from winners I've sold, plus up to $3,000 against ordinary income. Then I buy similar (but not identical because of wash sale rules) ETFs to replace what I sold.

The market's been crazy lately... I put $7k in VOO last year and it's up like 22%. If I don't sell, no taxes right? But what about next year if I need some of this money? How do I figure out which shares to sell to minimize taxes?

Great question! You're absolutely right - no taxes on unrealized gains. You only pay taxes when you actually sell shares and "realize" the gain. So if your VOO investment goes from $6,500 to $8,000 by year end but you don't sell, you owe $0 in taxes on that growth. Just keep in mind that VOO does pay quarterly dividends (currently around 1.3% annually), and those ARE taxable even if you automatically reinvest them. But the dividends from VOO are typically "qualified dividends" which get taxed at the lower capital gains rates (0%, 15%, or 20% depending on your income) rather than your ordinary income tax rate. When you do eventually sell, if you've held the shares for more than a year, you'll pay long-term capital gains tax on any profit, which is usually much better than short-term rates. VOO is a solid choice for a beginner - low fees and broad market exposure. Good luck!