Quote from john12:
cotossa i don't believe that. i've been trading a long time with 20 or more brokers and i've yet to see a broker who didn't report any sale. all sales are reported wether you close it or not. how you account for that is easy. lets says you have 500 shares short of ebay open at 25k sales proceed. simply have the gross cost equal the sale and put in parenthesis next to the stock symbol open short covered in 2007. i've been doing that for 15 years no problem. you've washed it out for no profit or loss still you close next year
John, your findings may not be the same as mine. I have been shorting stocks since 1972 but did not start checking for this problem until the IRS wrote me a nasty letter for the 2002 tax year. As a result, I have been checking all of my accounts for this problem each tax year. It is obvious that the IRS is matching up what is reported on the 1099 with what is reported on the schedule D.