Hi, For the daytraders out there, what is a good software that help with tracking trades and filing taxes. I used Quicken 2001 last year but ended up spending a lot of time redoing all the trades manually since it totally screwed up intraday trades when I long and short the same stocks multiple times during the same day. It doesn't preserve the order of a transaction download(and got all the minus and plus signs before the dollar amount screwed up) So, to avoid an IRS trouble, I retype the whole thing to match exactly what the brokerage submitted. The data transfer from Quicken to Turbotax was another nightmare. I almost screwed up big time on the numbers.. BTW, they got the grand total right just half of the individual day trading entries wrong.. Did anyone try to use Microsoft Money to track day trades? Quicken doesn't understand the concept of short.. How about TurboTax vs Taxcut?
I guess I need to start learning about this tax subject. I havent had to worry about it so far but it looks like this year it might be a problem. I get a monthly statement from my broker listing all my trades for the previous month. Are these statements insufficient for tax purposes? I'm puzzled by all these post about tracking trades.
The statements are enough, just my fingers aren't.. First, I don't want to type in all the trades Second, I want the tax software to be able to handle the trades like I would manually by calculating the correct gain/loss, putting the right gross proceeds in(with or without commissions), checking wash sale(less worried about this one) I would expect any tax software & trade tracking software can do that.. Well, my experience last year proved otherwise. It was quite a mess I have to redo those numbers manually. e.g. I can't send IRS a statement that my proceeds on selling a stock is -ve number and the cost basis is also a -ve number. IRS is not going to check line by line manually but computer can easily tell if a number submitted by my broker match with the one submitted by me. They are not going to be happy to see my return has several hundred -ve numbers on columns that is supposed to be +ve. And they certainly don't want to see everyone of my IB entries are off by commissions(because I am expected to put the commission in the cost basis in that case just for IB). They may not care but I am not going to take a chance to have my return spit out by the computer because of silly errors like that.
I am a former hedge fund trader starting to trade for myself. I am NOT mark-to-market. I intend to actively trade options and stocks. What software do the rest of you use to keep track of all your trades and generate a Schedule D? I need one that can import the trade data I get from my broker (IB), handles options correctly, and is capable of handling tax lots and the implications of the wash sale rule. Thanks in advance, fs
I used Money to import trades from my broker as a qif file than I exported to tax software, then I imported that into TaxCut. That worked great for me, but only after spending three days figuring out how to do it ;-)
I use tradelog, it's the best headache remedy I've ever found. Will do everything you want. For some reason the site won't come up tho.
Thanks for your responses. I went to TradeLog's site (http://www.armencomp.com/tradelog/). The software looks great, but does it handle option trades? I could not find any evidence that it does. If it does handle option transactions, then I will probably try it. Thanks again, fs
Is tradelog integrated with other popular tax software? I found the problems to be two folds: 1. I need a software that tracks trades. Something like Money or Qucken works to an extent if your broker supports their download format. Many brokers do nowadays. As for options, Money seems to work better than Quicken. For instance, I don't need to enter an artificial expiration transaction in Money. As long as the broker supports one of these two formats, tracking is not a big issue with the exception of IB, which reports gross sales on 1099 to IRS and net sales in their quicken/money download. My solution was to manually go through each transaction to add the commission back. 2. Calculating capital gains and get that into the rest of tax software. Quicken and Money are inadequate for daytrader in this aspect. Quicken was bad in handling short and long on the same stock in the same day. I don't think IRS is too amused if I send in -ve number as sales proceeds and -ve number as cost basis. The net of the two numbers are correct though but I got a feeling IRS don't want to see -ve numbers in those columns. Money is better in handling short but it has the same problem aggregating cost basis when the position was pared uot. The goal is Money should generate a capital gains report that matches the 1099 line items your broker sent to the IRS. In the case of paring, one 1099 line items can be splitted into multiple ones because of the way Money group transactions. There is nothing wrong technically with the Money generate the capital gains report. I just have a very uneasy feeling looking at the report that don't match with the 1099-B and worry that it may be flagged because of the mismatch. If you hand fix that like I did(can be painful for day trader) or if you pare your position, Money-Taxcut can work in most circumstances.