For the past few 3 years I have paid someone to do my taxes because of trading. Up until then I did all my taxes myself for the small businesses I had. I took some free IRS and state income tax classes. My returns look really simple to do. My accountant just lumped all my short and long trades together from each type of future. Does anyone do futures daytrading taxes themselves? Do you download the free stuff off the IRS website or do you use one of those Turbo Tax type of programs? Do you use Quicken to tally the results from the mountain of trades? Adobe will import my statements to that program from my monthly statements. Thanks in advance.
Years ago USA Today gave the hypothetical tax situation of a family of four to something like 10 different CPA's, tax accountants, H&R block's ect. Not one repeat not one of them calculated the tax correctly. I've done my own taxes ever since. I trade section 1256 contracts so the capital gains portion of my taxes is relatively simple. If your jumping in and out of individual stocks you'll definitely want to use some sort of tax software but I can't offer any advice on that.
I've always done my own. A few years back, when my taxes were even simpler, I took my forms to a preparer who said they would be ready in a week. When they were finally ready after ~ten days, I pointed out two major errors to the preparer and told them I was no longer interested in their services and walked out. Once I had the IRS make an error on my return! I had to cite line items in the instruction booklets and appeal through the local tax office. It took several months but the IRS eventually conceded their error. This related to tax treatment while based in a US Territory (Guam). But recently my taxes are getting increasingly complicated & I may have no choice for the 2004 tax year. In the end, nobody cares about your taxes more than you, so it pays to keep up to speed, even if you're not preparing them yourself.
I went to the local IRS office to inquire about the proper way to fill out an amortization form. It took three of these guys to figure out how to do it. I followed their instructions only to realize on my own the later that that were wrong. Even the IRS doesn't know how to fill out their own forms.