I'm new to IB, what should be done at the end of every day/month in order to keep track of your trades so that tax reporting is easier at the end of the year? Are the monthly statements enough to go by? Are there specific reports/confirms/executions that you print or export? Thanks.
I try to keep my daily and monthly on a Zip Disk ... and have used a software package with some success called GTT Tradelog I do not love it but think it is worth a look good luck
I have switched from Quicken to tradelog. Quicken is just such a pain with short sales (given how they are reported by IB). Tradelog is very efficient for keeping track of you IB trades. The tax reporting in tradelog is not correct for futures, I believe. Tradelog simply considers one ES equal to 50 shares of an "es stock". While that works for p&L, it's not correct for tax reporting. It also mixes futures with stocks for schedule D, which is a problem. I have alerted the author to the problem, and he is supposedly working on a solution. http://www.armencomp.com/tradelog/ They offer two products: TradeLog and GTT tradeLog. I use TradeLog
... and do you save the executions at the end of the day, or just wait for the email that IB sends (at least i think they send an email the following day with the previous day's trades).
i wish there was something cheaper. $200 a year for that shit is BS. i could pay some tax lackey $200 and get it done with no effort on my part...and if it's screwed up, it's his ass, not mine. anyone do it with excel, or something else free??? -cheaprider
Bungrider, Check out: www.ingenit.com/tradepair/ I use it and it is free....it is written by Igor Sidorenkov...this has been posted on ET before in previous threads...he is a trader and a progammer...he provides it to us guys for free....if any questions, you can write to him at his email address which is enclosed in the above web page he has.
These guys are way ahead of the pack in that they actually incorporate some planning tools into their software to help you trade in a more tax efficient manner. Yes, it spits out a Sch. D too. http://www.gainskeeper.com I still think the market has a long way to go in developing the trader niche. For example, options, futures and currency trading has yet to be dealt with effectively. Perhaps, because the rules and complex and still in flux.
Once you have a Sch D produced by Gainskeeper can you load it into any tax program? I use ATX (also known as Saber) to do my 1040. Or is it only able to load into well known tax programs like TurboTax, ect?
Yes. They call them "trade buckets". For an extra 500 trades it costs another $100 on top of the $149. For an extra 2000 on top of the first 1000 trades it is $199 on top of the $149. And here is the biggie: If you want 5000 trades on top of the first 1000 trades it is an extra $450 on top of the $149! Ouch! $599 if you do more than 6000 trades! (I don't do that many, I don't have to worry)... Gainskeeper has a free 30 day trial. (25 trades max).