Do not use tradelog for your taxes

Despite my reserved comments above, I still use TradeLog for all my trade accounting and have recommended it to my trader friends.

Schedule D is very hard to figure out on your own, and as far as I can tell, TL does it correctly. Also, when the SchD continuation sheets are measured in pounds, Excel is just not a practical option, for me at least.

TradeLog has over the last few months undergone major enhancements, all of which have made it easier to use. In terms of overall value and accuracy, I haven't found anything close.
 
My case rests. You can see David Eich's arrogant, smug attitude in each of his replies to this thread. The software is convenient and saved me a lot of time, but the interaction with him turned me off.
 
Quote from tradelog:

We have users who are being audited for exactly that practise. You can file your taxes any way you like and ignore any of the tax rules and it is OK, until you get audited.

If you have not elected Mark to Market then you must report wash sales. Even if all your positions are closed at year end, if you sell a stock or option at a loss and in December and then buy it back within 30 days in January then that loss is disallowed for that tax year and must be deferred. Anyone who tells you differently is not much of an accountant.

PS: You need to be very careful about giving tax advise that clearly ignores IRS tax laws, and the wash sale rule is part of that law, like it or not.

According to the wash sales rule the stock you buy within 30 days does not have to be the same but similar to the stock you've sold. How does TradeLog software know to match buys and sells of different stocks for the wash sales purposes?
 
Quote from tradelog:

The IRS uses the term "substantially identical" securities so APPL is not the same as DELL.

But this can apply to stocks and options on the same underlying security such as when you sell 100 sh of DELL at a loss and then buy 1 DELL option contract - see: http://www.armencomp.com/wash-sales.html#options
and http://www.fairmark.com/capgain/wash/wsident.htm

Tradelog handles these cases as per the IRS requirements

So how does the software qualify 2 stocks ( options, mutual funds) as being 'substantially identical' apart from the case of them having the same underlying?
 
A stock is not the same as a mutual fund and it does not matter if the fund includes the stock.

If you trade the same mutual fund then you may incur wash sales.
 
Based on your explanation I draw the conclusion that the IRS term 'substantially identical' boils down in TradeLog to 'having the same underlying'. Is my conclusion correct?
 
rice rocket is correct. the software is good but david eich is a dick period.your customers are your blood line and if you don't treat them right they will leave. there's services out there that will do each scd d per company no matter how many entries for $50 per company.
 
I can see that this forum is not much for providing useful information to traders, but more for slander and public humiliation. When you are in business you cannot always please every customer. RiceRocket is a classic example of one who wanted to extend his software subscription without paying for it because his PC crashed.

He also chose to purchase a much cheaper record level upgrade with only one month left on his subscription despite the fact that we clearly explained on our purchase page that this would NOT extend his subscription period. How is that our problem?

Now disgruntled, he pops in every once in while to further offer his hurtful comments. We are not a perfect software company manned with perfect employees. Sometimes during tax season users call or email us and they are mad as a hatter because they are under the gun to get their taxes done and they don't want to read the user guide.

We do our best to handle calm them down. We even had 3 different customers send one of our support persons gift certificates this tax season. But some people just want to go out and maliciously spread as much negative talk as they can so they somehow hurt our company or business.

TradeLog is priced quite reasonably when compared to our closest competitor who offers no phone support and limited explanation about how their software works or handles the many different nuances of the IRS wash sale rule.

We have many users how would disagree with much of the negative comments in this forum, but they are too busy being professional in their trading business for such nonsense.

I trust that anyone reading this will see through this attack.
 
Back
Top