Sometimes worse than a letter from the IRS is the receipt of your Form 1099-B in February.
You thought you had experienced a significant loss and would have a net capital loss carryover for years, but you discover your broker actually reported a GAIN to the IRS!!!
So what can you do?
> Download the raw trades from your broker. If you cannot download them, request them from customer service. If that takes more than a day, change brokers.
> Sort all the ancillary information out of the download - dividends, interest, margin interest, cash contributions or withdrawals - so that you have only the trades.
> Separate the "Amount" column into "Buys" and "Sells"
> Calculate the difference between the "Buys" and "Sells" by Symbol and compare to your 1099-B.
> If there are discrepancies which you know are not wash sales you can adjust them on Form 8949 in the "Adjustment" columns with either code "B" or "W" and an amount to bring the gain or loss into what actually occurred.
We can do this for you so you can analyze your trades yourself for a modest fee depending on the number of trades. Just email us your situation ...