Is Tradelog or Gainskeeper necessary?

[bro59]

And yes, you are responsible for verifying the information provided by your broker.

IB has an absolutely awful record for inaccurate 1099's. They even forgot to include commissions once about 5 years ago for all traders. Guess how many audits that triggered?

I'm a satisfied IB customer, and have referred a couple of other people over there including one very large customer. But if you think you can rely on their data to defend yourself to an IRS challenge then think again. If there's a problem you lose, not the firm.

These 3rd party data processor programs can give you an edge if you get questioned on your basis.

 

[GermanTrader]

Quote from bro59:

IB has an absolutely awful record for inaccurate 1099's.

Agreed. I dropped their sorry asses after the downloaded tax forms were modified after I sent them to the IRS. Dumbshits.

 

[tradelog]

Quote from piggie2000:

tradelog is good but honestly its not neccesary.many co's like ib give you the d-1 and its accurate to the penny. also for people who trade thousands to 10's of thousands of times its worthless . brokers like penson list all your buys and sells and add them up on both sides so thats your profit

This is flat out bad tax advice! We have seen many many broker prvided P&L statements that are wrong, mainly due to missing cost basis from previous years.

Also none of these broker provided P&L statements calculate and adjust for wash sales which is required by the IRS for reporting on schedule d. So you cannot simply take the broker provided P&L and file your taxes.

 

[tradelog]

Quote from GermanTrader:

Agreed. I dropped their sorry asses after the downloaded tax forms were modified after I sent them to the IRS. Dumbshits.

I am going out on a limb here to stick up for IB because of all the brokers that we support, IB currently has the most comprehensive trade history reports. I know because I helped design the IB TradeLog flex report which gets imported into TradeLog. I wish all brokers would allow us this courtesy.

In addition, IB accurately reports open positions at the end of each month unlike most other brokers, and for the last two years we have had very few if any problems with their reporting.

Almost all brokers get some of their 1099's wrong. That's why you sometimes get two or 3 revisions. Other times they simply do not pick up the errors. But software like TradeLog allows you to verify your trades against your 1099 and if the 1099 is wrong at least you have a way to prove to the IRS that the 1099 is wrong and your return is right.

Without such software you are on your own.

 

[a5519]

Quote from tradelog:

... He was using a non-US windows setup for date/time, which at the time we did not support because our software was designed primarily for the US market. He could have easily switched to a US date/time windows setting which would have fixed his problem but he was only argumentive.

Wow... switch windows setup... This is real certificate of incapacity of a sw vendor.
Tradelog users, be careful with windows locale, else you could submit by chance Canadian or Brazilian taxes !!

Moreover, you are openly lying. The program stopped working after one of the updates in the middle of subscription.
You didn't fix the problem and didn't return the payed money. You have actually stollen my money.

Be careful with tradelog, just be prepared for any surprises. Using sw for taxes that is not able to handle
dates properly is a dangerous adventure.

 

[tradelog]

Quote from a5519:

Wow... switch windows setup... This is real certificate of incapacity of a sw vendor.
Tradelog users, be careful with windows locale, else you could submit by chance Canadian or Brazilian taxes !!

Moreover, you are openly lying. The program stopped working after one of the updates in the middle of subscription.
You didn't fix the problem and didn't return the payed money. You have actually stollen my money.

Be careful with tradelog, just be prepared for any surprises. Using sw for taxes that is not able to handle
dates properly is a dangerous adventure.

Once again a statement by someone who refused to use the software as designed, has not used it in years, and is only out to slander our reputation. If this accusation was true we would be out of business and tens of thousands of happy users would not have filed their taxes successfully.

So who are you going to believe? I think that most readers of this forum can see beyond such trashy comments.

 

[piggie2000]

again i think there's some confusion her from mr tradelog. i assure you most people who would ever use tradelog are very very active traders who close most positions at year end thus negating the use of tradelog or gainskeeper. ib does first in first out accounting thus keeping track of positions that go into different years. plus many brokers provide gainskeeper for free. again tradelog works very well but most people just don't need it. thats my opinion and others must make up there own mind

 

[tradelog]

Quote from piggie2000:

again i think there's some confusion her from mr tradelog. i assure you most people who would ever use tradelog are very very active traders who close most positions at year end thus negating the use of tradelog or gainskeeper. ib does first in first out accounting thus keeping track of positions that go into different years. plus many brokers provide gainskeeper for free. again tradelog works very well but most people just don't need it. thats my opinion and others must make up there own mind

Then please let me clear up any confusion: TradeLog is not just for very active traders, as we have less expensive versions such as TradeLog 200 for 200 records or less which accomodates approximately 100 or less round trip trades per year.

All traders and investors MUST report and adjust for wash sales. Broker provided P&L statements do not, so these cannot be used for taxes. In addition many broker provided P&L statements are incorrect, even those with no open positions at year end. We have proven this over and over again each tax year and our users sometimes are surprised by this fact.

If you do not use software such as TradeLog, or some other methodology of verifying your P&L, you will not know if you miscalculated your taxes due to a wrong broker provided report. And who wants to take such a chance with the IRS?

Plus any broker provided free Gainskeeper report does not adjust for wash sales across other accounts that you may have which is required by the IRS. GK also does not calculate wash sales between a short loss trade and a long trade, or between stocks and options trades which also is required by the IRS.

These are the facts and not simply an opinion.

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from tradelog:

We have many Vista users and have tens thousands of users who successfully filed their taxes using our TradeLog software in the past 8 years. To date we have not had one return come back from the IRS due to our gains & losses report.

And yet, you use a company user ID and cannot afford to be a sponsor...

 

[tradelog]

Quote from TraderZones:

And yet, you use a company user ID and cannot afford to be a sponsor...

Personally I have found these forums to be mostly negative and full of misrepresentations and trader tax misconceptions. I have tried my best to clear up some of these, but I could spend my life in such forums and then not have the time to continue to make our TradeLog software the best it can be.

Additionally, if I was a paid sponsor, would you value my comments as much?