It's their own damn fault! They had the SEC do the 25k daytrading rule which drove everyone over to the futs mkt.
25k rule never made sense from day one.
reduce all your numbers to reflect what 1 ES contract is supposed to generate. Trade 1 ES.
same principles to make money with 1 as with 100.
Make a plan for each trade and stick to it. The moment you don't trust yourself or system it's over.
Options - no part of an options transaction is reported to the IRS.
Futures - complain to IB ...if enough people complain they might change for next year.
I called the IRS and finally got to someone who knew something. The answer is simple and what I figured they might say.
Attach a note stating why the figures you put on form 6781 are different than what IB's 1099 says.
this isn't like stock sales where they just report your sales and it's up to you to report your basis. With futures on all 1099s they calculate your P/L for you and that figure is reported to the IRS. In this case they have reported my profits with out including commissions.
Just started trading the emini's towards the end of the year with IB. My statements and records indicate a gain of 4500 gross and total commissions of 500. So my Net Profit is 4k. I received my 1099 from IB today and they only show the gross profit of 4500. How do I report this so that my...