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A wash sale is if you make a trade and incur a loss for that trade, you may not classify it as a loss yet if you trade that same stock within a 30 day period. The loss can be used as a cost basis for the next trade though. Look it up on yahoo or google, basically it's a pain in the ass to...

but if you do get audited and you're not into hanky panky stuff, you still have to show the IRS all thousands of trades you made which would suck. I do like the no limit for maximum deductible losses. I could have used that in 2002 when I lost way more than 3K

Really??? That's great. I'm one of the laziest people come tax time and this is the best news I've heard in a while (other than AMLN going up 27% :) ) To everyone who replied: Thanks a bunch! I looked at the Mark to market type reporting but I'm too much of a puss to have the IRS audit me.

being an MTM though, i have to prove to the IRS that I'm a real trader if I get audited right? I hold an engineering job but have time to make around 3-5 trades a day. It may not seem much but come tax time next year, I'll have to spend tons of time just to do the wash sale stuff. I think...

yeah, but like i previously stated, I'm planning to move away from Ameritrade to Interactive brokers so I'm wondering how I could easily generate my total basis cost for the year.

To you guys, how do you get your total basis cost for the year without going line by line? I use Ameritrade's free gainskeeper (apex client) right now but if I move to IB, do they provide a net cost basis for the year?

the IRS won't just take a statement if they audit you though, right? they'll probably tell you it's your problem but they might still want the sched D. I didn't realize you can just add 1 line item though. Same question though, how did you calculate your Overall Basis cost for the year? Did...

do brokers like IB give you the basis cost and the total sells? so you just do a simple arithmetic or do you keep track of every trade you do still but just report the net gain/loss?

Does your broker give you your total basis cost for the year? otherwise, you still have to track down each and every trade right? plus, don't you think IRS wants to find out which ones are wash sales and which ones aren't? Re: trading futures - is the schedule D just 1 line item? no wash...

Hey guys, I've been reading up on people that do scalp trading and it's amazing how many times trades are done per day. Now my question is, do you have to break down every single trade on your Schedule D? I use Ameritrade right now and I'm just a position trader and they give me a tool...