Interactive Brokers - Tax return

[suchong]

I conducted a massive number of transactions through IB, and my 08/09 statements run to around 2000 pages.

The activity was reckless speculation, so I'll be stating my profits as capital gains. This seems to demand a share matching analysis, which could be a very lengthy task.

I'd be pleased to hear from anyone who could name software that might be useful, or an accountant familiar with IB statements.

 

[donaldduke]

I conducted a massive number of transactions through IB, and my 08/09 statements run to around 2000 pages.

The activity was reckless speculation, so I'll be stating my profits as capital gains. This seems to demand a share matching analysis, which could be a very lengthy task.

I'd be pleased to hear from anyone who could name software that might be useful, or an accountant familiar with IB statements.

This shouldnt be a problem.

IB account mangement website can generate a standard tax year April the 5th (or whatever day it is) 2008 to April the 5th 2009 statement.

There will be sumary tables on the first few page that show PnL for the period and any currency profit and loss. It will also show total deposits and withdrawals for the period. And opening and closing balances. That should be enough for any accountant.

 

[suchong]

This shouldnt be a problem.

IB account mangement website can generate a standard tax year April the 5th (or whatever day it is) 2008 to April the 5th 2009 statement.

But if I open a new position, I believe it must be matched with any opposite transaction that took place within the previous 30 days.

The IB statement might show a profit from the sale of a certain stock, but suppose the sale occurred within the last 30 days of the tax year and I rebought on 6th April. The profit from the earlier tax year would have to be struck off, as the position would effectively have been reinstated in the later tax year.

 

[donaldduke]

But if I open a new position, I believe it must be matched with any opposite transaction that took place within the previous 30 days.

The IB statement might show a profit from the sale of a certain stock, but suppose the sale occurred within the last 30 days of the tax year and I rebought on 6th April. The profit from the earlier tax year would have to be struck off, as the position would effectively have been reinstated in the later tax year.

Sorry didnt read you post properly.

I only trade futures and i dont think the 30 day rule applies to futures.

I cant really recommend any software myself, however if i was in your shoes i would write some custom code to do the matching. Can you program?

Hopefully someone else will know a proper solution to this..

 

[songcon]

But if I open a new position, I believe it must be matched with any opposite transaction that took place within the previous 30 days.

The IB statement might show a profit from the sale of a certain stock, but suppose the sale occurred within the last 30 days of the tax year and I rebought on 6th April. The profit from the earlier tax year would have to be struck off, as the position would effectively have been reinstated in the later tax year.

GainKeeper software will do the wash sale tax report for you as long as you stay with one brokerage firm. Make sure that they use GainKeeper, and they have year-to-date tax report and you can access to it. All transactions are reported as regular gain and loss but if there was a loss of $1,000 on ABC company and you repurchase the ABC company within 30 days after the sale. GainKeeper will look back and recognine the company and create a line that is called wash sale and reverse the reverse (reduce) the loss by $1,000, that $1,000 will be the added cost for the new lot of ABC that you've just repurchased.

Form 1099-B won't be sent before Jan 31 of the next year for that reason.

If IB doesn't have GainKeeper, you can subscribe yourself and import the transactions through Quicken. Here is the cost structure as it's shown on the internet:

Subscription Levels for Client Accounts

Investor150
$69
Includes 150 transactions and 15 BasisPro calculations

Trader1000
$179
Includes 1,000 transactions and 40 BasisPro calculations

Trader3000
$359
Includes 3,000 transactions and 75 BasisPro calculations

Trader5000
$499
Includes 5,000 transactions and 100 BasisPro calculations

TraderElite
$659
Includes up to 20,000 transactions and 150 BasisPro calculations

Source: http://www.gainskeeper.com/us/PricingAdvisors.aspx

Hope this helps.

 

[suchong]

Thanks I'll check out Gainkeeper, and didn't consider that only shares and not futures would be affected by the 30-day rule, so the number of affected transactions will be fewer than I thought.