How to calculate missing cost basis information and purchase date on my 1099 B.

T

thinkb4do

I received my 1099-B, but it's missing the cost basis information and purchase date for a stock I traded in 2015. I contacted customer support, but they said that their clearing firm APEX elected not to supply this information. CS gave me a CSV file with all my trades and told me to figure it out myself or give it to a tax professional. I'm a TurboTax user and would like to give this a go myself.

Do I calculate my partial buys into the round lot shares that APEX provided? I have partial buys on different dates as well. How do I figure out which date of purchase I should use? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, in advance.
 
  • Open the CSV file in a spreadsheet.
  • Delete the rows you don't need.
  • Delete the columns you don't need.
  • Sum the Credit and Debit columns.
  • Print and submit.





:)
 
Disclaimer: I am not a tax professional

It sounds like you have a single stock that you made multiple short-term trades in 2015.

If the number of trades is small enough, I would break them up into separate rows. If you have, say, 5 entries and 1 exit then you would make that 5 trades. If that becomes unwieldy, you should be ok listing the entry date and/or exit date as VARIOUS.

It is important that trades which are short-term vs long-term be properly separated.

For cost-basis, you may include your commissions.

Lastly, if your broker is a US broker they are required to supply the info. I know there's not much you can do to force them, but you might save any written communication documenting your problem getting proper reporting from them. Then, in the unlikely event of an audit or followup from the IRS, you'll have it handy. Regardless, I would seriously consider firing them and using someone else as you really don't want to go through this every year. Many brokers will even automatically import into TurboTax.
 
another complication is wash sales - not something you want to be computing yourself.
note to self: avoid any broker using APEX clearing.
 
This is sticky stuff especially with hundreds of trades a year. The letter from the IRS, a year and a half later from the tax year in question, can strike fear in the hearts of traders ...
 
I dug around a little and Apex clears for many well known brokers. I suspect your broker is just being difficult and the problem isn't actually Apex. You might see if you can get to a higher level/competent support person or you might try contact Apex directly.
 
Hey,

Thanks for the replies! I spoke with a Turbo Tax Expert Rep this morning (who I guess is higher up on the expertise ladder - after speaking with two other advisors earlier). As per my original post, I had several shares bought broken up in odd lot shares at different prices, however my sold shares were in 100 share round lots. Anyways, he recommended the easiest way would be to do an average cost calculation using a single line trx entry of my total number of shares bought and sold. As for the date, since in my case I bought and sold in the same year 2015, I just put the dates where I bought and sold the shares the most.

Per TurboTax, since I bought and sold within the year, dates wouldn't matter since my transactions are considered short term gain/losses anyways. I used this handy website calculator as well to figure out my avg cost.
http://www.onlineconversion.com/adjusted_cost_base.htm

Hope this helps.
 
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