IRS is piling up victories in tax court against traders

tiddlywinks · Feb 28, 2014

The IRS is piling up victories in tax court against individual traders who inappropriately use Section 475 MTM business ordinary loss treatment for deducting large trading losses. Fariborz Assaderaghi & Miao-Fen Lin v. Commissioner is yet another IRS win that can be added to the list. According to Tax Analysts, âThe Tax Court held that a husband's trading activity in securities didn't constitute a trade or business and, thus, he wasn't eligible for a mark-to-market accounting method election under section 475(f) and the couple was limited to a $3,000 deduction of losses from the purchase and sale of securities under section 1211(b) for each year at issue.â

The full GreenTraderTax blog post is here:
http://www.greencompany.com/blog/index.php?postid=208

jeb9999 · Feb 28, 2014

Very misleading headline.

The reality is that the IRS is piling up victories in tax court against individual speculators who lose money. These individual speculators are not full time traders and are attempting to abuse the tax laws.

bone · Feb 28, 2014

Well, speaking for the futures traders It doesn't matter if you're full or part time - you fill out Form 1256 and those results make the trip over to your Form 1040. And it doesn't matter if you're full time or part time if you want the benefits of blended capital gains you simply can't carry forward more than $3K in losses. And it doesn't matter if you show income from other sources like 1099 or W2 wages.

ballsofgold · Mar 27, 2014

bone said:
Well, speaking for the futures traders It doesn't matter if you're full or part time - you fill out Form 1256 and those results make the trip over to your Form 1040. And it doesn't matter if you're full time or part time if you want the benefits of blended capital gains you simply can't carry forward more than $3K in losses. And it doesn't matter if you show income from other sources like 1099 or W2 wages.

This is true unless you declare yourself as a full time trader where 1256 contracts are sole source of income....under this condition you can roll forward your mtm losses above 3k on your schedule c

i believe 475 is more for equity traders

should also be noted......if you are not a full time traded but have losses greater than 3k...you can only declare a max of 3k in a year but can use it infinitely in the following years until the full loss is accounted for

gkishot · Mar 29, 2014

jeb9999 said:
Very misleading headline.

The reality is that the IRS is piling up victories in tax court against individual speculators who lose money. These individual speculators are not full time traders and are attempting to abuse the tax laws.

How does that matter? They are losing their own money.

JackR · Mar 29, 2014

Whether you are making money or losing money, a Trader in Securities/Futures, as recognized by the IRS, can take many deductions that are either disallowed or essentially disallowed to traders classified as investors.

Jack

jeb9999 · Mar 29, 2014

gkishot said:
How does that matter? They are losing their own money.

You are obviously not very familiar with the tax laws.

Losing your own money is incidental under the tax laws.

The IRS makes clear distinctions between those that dabble in a business or have a hobby and those that are professionals in a business.

Look at some other business area such as horse racing.

If you invest in race horses, only spend 10 hours a week on race horses and lose money the IRS just considers you to have an expensive hobby.

If you invest in race horses and your full time job is training and racing horses the IRS considers you to be in the horse racing business and you get different tax treatment for expenses and losses.
.

gkishot · Mar 30, 2014

jeb9999 said:
You are obviously not very familiar with the tax laws.

Losing your own money is incidental under the tax laws.

The IRS makes clear distinctions between those that dabble in a business or have a hobby and those that are professionals in a business.

Look at some other business area such as horse racing.

If you invest in race horses, only spend 10 hours a week on race horses and lose money the IRS just considers you to have an expensive hobby.

If you invest in race horses and your full time job is training and racing horses the IRS considers you to be in the horse racing business and you get different tax treatment for expenses and losses.
.

No tax law can determine by looking at one given year whether I am a losing or a profitable trader in the long run. This should be irrelevant to the law. All should be treated equally under fair law. The current vague law gives plenty of leeway to interpret it against a trader.
Are you having yourself the Trader Status?

Satan's Helper · Mar 30, 2014

bone said:
you simply can't carry forward more than $3K in losses.

Bone as a sponsor of ET you should know better that nobody on this site losses money. Why would you bring up such negative nonsense....

We a F^@king Elite Traders!

zdreg · Mar 30, 2014

Satan's Helper said:
Bone as a sponsor of ET you should know better that nobody on this site losses money. Why would you bring up such negative nonsense....

We a F^@king Elite Traders!

they only trade in the mornings. that is how the tax people catch them as not being professionals.