Hello, I want to transfer my assets from TDA to IB, mainly for lower margins. I'm just concerned, what would be the affect of some of my positions? Is there anything I should consider? I have some large unrealized gains, I want to make sure I can use multiple lot identification when I sell the shares on some of those gains because I bought more shares of this certain stock (GNW). Overall I have let's say roughyly $100k in stocks ($180k total with margin balance), and $80k in margin. I have some options (one spread on Google, some covered calls) I also have some pink sheets (Washington Mutual). Is there anything I should consider before doing this ACAT transfer or should it be smooth? Are there any tax reporting considerations? Thanks for your info.
There should be nothing about the transfer that would change your tax reporting (normally first in first out "FIFO") if you do manual entries into your IRS schedule D. IB will show the opening date of your incoming securities as the date IB receives your account. IB will also show your opening trade price of your incoming securities as the closing price on the day IB receives your account. You can login into your IB account management after the transfer is complete and change your incoming securities purchase dates and prices to the your original dates and prices shown with your previous broker. However, if you use a software program to do your schedule D for securities, you could run into some tax lot matching problems which happened with my account transfers. I use software to handle the accounting and tax reporting. For this reason, I no longer transfer open positions between brokers. I open new brokerage accounts of my choice and sell all of the positions in the brokerage accounts I want to close and withdraw the cash.
I would suggest you get a program like tradelog by armencorp to keep track of your trades with IB, it makes things a lot easier.