Do I qualify for Trader status?

Quote from JackR:

Ashan you have a number of things to consider -

If you are currently young, healthy, and single you have probably not thought much about medical insurance.

If you marry and have children, medical insurance might be nice unless your spouse has insurance or you are a VERY successful trader. You will not believe what maternity bills amount to.

A tax-sheltered, deductible, retirement plan might be nice.

These are only feasible/deductible through some "entity", not via trader status.

None of these have to do with "trader" tax status. However, if you plan to trade for a living for a long time these things will become more important. But, if you just plan to trade for a few years they mean little. However, depending on how successful you are, you may trade until ready to retire. Again, go to Green or some other CPA type that specializes in traders and the trading business. Most CPA's don't have any idea what a 1256 contract is, what trader status is, etc., etc. You need to deal with a specialist.

Jack
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Well for now I'm covered by my family medical insurance plan and I don't plan on a wife/kids for a long time.

I obviously need to read more on this so I ordered Green's tax book for traders.

But from what I have read here, there are no tax benefits to incorporating. Incorporating will actually cause me to lose the benefit of the 60/40 blended tax rate of the 1256 contracts because corporate taxes are not less for long term gains (I think they're taxed at the full amount) Also I believe I'll have to pay self employment tax on any wage I get from the company.

My siuation isn't really that complicated, so I think I can get it myself without hiring anyone. Hopefully that book will have the answers.
 
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