tax for futures traders
- Thread starter nyc_guy
- Start date
The vast majority of accountants, including CPAs, know very little about taxes for traders. If your taxes are simple and straightforward then you can do them yourself, but you have to do the research which is rather time consuming. If you trade enough, as in the IRS canât deny you are clearly an active trader, and have no other sources of income then you can have your futures trading gains go on form 6781 and transferred to Schedule D, and you can take deductions for your expenses on schedule C if you are not trading through an entity. Those expenses especially the home office deductions can be tricky, and some traders simply donât have enough expenses to bother, it depends on your particular situation. If you trade and lose money or have carry over loses then what you will be able to deduct that year will change, and again depends on your situation.
Quote from nazzdack:
1) Go to greentradertax.com and tradersaccounting for trading-related tax matters merely as a "starting point".
2) Go to a trading-knowledgable CPA for additional info, not just any generic CPA.
Yeah, try these first because most other tax accountants will most likely make mistakes or cost you money (more than you should) if you don't use someone that's specialized or has experience with doing taxes for independent traders.
Heck, even calling your government so called "tax help line" will cause more harm than good for independent traders...I speak from experience about a few issues 5 years ago that resulted in an audit
