I currently trade futures only through IB. The 1099 looks real clean, a net profit figure and a seperate commission figure. No need to go through individual trades for tax purposes. If I want to start trading some equities in 2004, will my IB 1099 split the relevant equity trade profit figure out from the futures, and give whatever other info is required to calc wash sales in a clean manner..... or would I have to go through my statements trade by trade or use some sort of logging to handle the equity trades at tax time? Also would it mess up my ability to account for the futures trades as cleanly as I can now having no equity trades? Also, for tax purposes, is there any distinction between full size futures and the CME minis? Thanks
IB provides a separate 1099 for the futures account trades. The universal account is transparent, but it really is a separate account. All funds are held in the equities side, until needed for futures margin.
IB has not been providing wash sale computations, no telling what will happen for 2004. Fidelity is one of the few that compute wash sales for you. Of course, if you are an active trader, you might consider electing M2M by April 15th 2004 and filing form 3115 in 2005, making the wash sales not applicable on your securities trading transactions!