TXF Express

General Topics On Wash Sales and iScheduleD Portfolio Manager

2010-03-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

The Wash Sale Rule

The wash sale rule prevents you from claiming a loss on a sale of stock/option if you buy replacement stock/option within the 30 days before or after the sale. That sounds simple enough — but there are so many questions that arise in connection with the wash sale rule that most investors or traders do not know how to report wash sales when filing tax returns.

Wash Sale 101

This article provides a brief yet clear introduction to wash sales. In general you have a wash sale if you sell stock at a loss, and buy substantially identical securities within 30 days before or after the sale.

Example: On March 31 you sell 100 shares of XYZ at a loss. On April 10 you buy 100 shares of XYZ. The sale on March 31 is a wash sale.

The wash sale period for any sale at a loss consists of 61 days: the day of the sale, the 30 days before the sale and the 30 days after the sale. (These are calendar days, not trading days. Count carefully!) If you want to claim your loss as a deduction, you need to avoid purchasing the same stock during the wash sale period. For a sale on March 31, the wash sale period includes all of March and April.

Wash Sale Software

There are many wash sale software programs that an investor can choose to assist tax preparation. In general, wash sale software is priced in the range from USD $20 to USD $700. Why there is such a big difference is unknown given that IRS has clearly stated that wash sales should be based on FIFO trade matching.

Here is a comparison of the pricing of the wash sale calculators on the market. You can see that the well known GainsKeeper can be priced more than USD $600. In comparison, iScheduleD Portfolio Manager is priced in the range from USD $14.99 to USD $29.99. In terms of wash sales calculation, there is no major difference between GainsKeeper and iScheduleD Portfolio Manager. The main difference is that iScheduleD Portfolio Manager will save you hundreds of hard-earned dollars.

Product Name	Price	Annual Subscription
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Basic	$14.99 for 1000 transactions	No*
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Standard	$19.99 for 2000 transactions	No*
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Professional	$24.99 for 5000 transactions	No*
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Unlimited	$29.99 for unlimited transactions	No*
GainsKeeper Investor150	$69 for 150 transactions	Yes
GainsKeeper Trader1000	$179 for 1000 transactions	Yes
GainsKeeper Trader5000	$499 for 5000 transactions	Yes
GainsKeeper TradeElite	$659 for up to 20,0000 transactions	Yes
Tradelog 200	$69 for 200 transactions	Yes
Tradelog 600	$119 for 600 transactions	Yes
Tradelog 1500	$169 for 1500 transactions	Yes
Tradelog unlimited	$297 for unlimited transaction	Yes
Simplytrack Professional	$49.99	Yes

*: If your brokers change the data format, you might have to purchase a updated version.
**: All the quoted prices were collected from the respective websites on March 7, 2010.

A Great Review of iScheduleD Portfolio Manager from an Experienced Investor at CNET.COM

"Greatly simplifies tax preparation for active traders"

by grinninbrit71 on March 10, 2010

Pros: If your an active trader, with multiple brokerage accounts or short positions, this is it. Although this product is categorized as a Portfolio Manager, it really is nothing like feature rich Portfolio Manager but thats a great thing at tax time.

Cons: Not an extensive set of portfolio tools by any means. But in my mind this con is actually a strong point.

Summary: Its tax time and this tool unlike any other I've seen offers the simplest way I've seen to bring multiple brokerage transactions together, with the ability to quickly modify the CSV files ahead of import for those special positions that require manual-cost basis adjustment. Nothing around I've found to do this, and I've looked extensively.I'll be recommending this to any of my friends that are active traders. Other portfolio tools are for bells and whistles. This is for getting your taxes done accurately and in the shortest time possible. Honestly, brokerages themselves provide extensive portfolio mangagement these days, and if not a Quicken like tool might be desired. But there are many basic tax entries that aren't easily manageable in any of these other tools. This product will quickly streamline imports from multiple brokers, generate your washes flawlessly and spit out 1 nice TXF file. The unlimited version is a great deal for the price. Have short positions that require cost-basis adjustment? This product doesn't natively do that, but its the only tool where since your importing CSV files, you simply add the dividends paid type costs right at the CSV level before import. Other tools are good at automatically recognizing corporate actions like stock dividends and splits. But need a manual adjustment for something like a ROC distribution paid. Your out of luck on the other products.

How iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Works?

In general, a user starts with creating a new portfolio, which can manage stock and option trades from multiple brokers including well know ETrade, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab and etc. After the portfolio is populated with stock and option trades, the user can click on the Schedule D tab and choose a specific tax year. Clicking on the Next button will lead to the generation of TXF (Tax eXchange Format) files, which can be used to create Schedule D Form 1040.

Example 1: Calculate Wash Sales on Option Trades Using iScheduleD Portfolio Manager

There are four option trades on SLV in this simple example.

The capital loss on 09/09/2009 is a wash sale because SLV was sold short on 10/15/2009.

Picture 1.1

The picture below shows capital gains and losses without wash sales adjusted.

Picture 1.2

This picture shows capital gains and losses with wash sales adjusted. Because all the four option trades are done within one year and every trade is matched properly, there is no wash sales deferred to next year. The total capital gains does not change even if wash sales calculation is enabled in this particular example.

Picture 1.3

Example 2: Calculate Wash Sales on Stock Trades Using iScheduleD Portfolio Manager

In total, there are nine trades on AAPL and CME in 2008. At the year end, there are still open positions on AAPL and CME.

Picture 2.1

Without wash sales calculated, the capital gains for year 2008 is USD $248.8.

Picture 2.2

With wash sales calculated, the capital gains for tax year 2008 is $352.8 and the total of wash sales deferred to next tax year is ($104.0). There is a buy back of AAPL and CME on 08/29/2008.

Picture 2.3

You can see that iScheduleD Portfolio Manager provides a very nice view of how wash sales are calculated. You can enable or disable wash sales with one click on the check box Compute Wash Sales.

Example 3: Calculate More Complicated Wash Sales Using iScheduleD Portfolio Manager

This examples focus on a single security SNDK. The trades on SNDK were spreach in two years: 2008 and 2009. Picture 3.1 shows the portfolio view in iScheduleD Portfolio Manager.

Picture 3.1

Switch to the Schedule D tab to start wash sale calculation. Choose tax year 2008 and click on the Next button.

Picture 3.2

Without wash sales adjusted, the total capital loss is ($110,022.57). That is quite a significant number.

Picture 3.3

With wash sales ajusted, unfortunately you have a capital gain $7,023.08 and the wash sales deferred to the next tax year 2009 is ($117,045.65).

Picture 3.4

iScheduleD Portfolio Manager also allows to view long-term and short-term capital gains separately by selecting from the Capital Gains drop down menu. It is also convenient to print the generated Schedule D gains and losses for reference.

Do not forget to click on Export To TXF button to generate a .TXF file. You will need it for import to tax preparation software such as TurboTax and TaxCut.

By walking through these examples, you will find that iScheduleD Portofolio Manager does bring a significant value to tax preparation. It is simple and inexpesive. More importantly, it is as effective as GainsKeeper on wash sale calculation. Thank about a deal. This is it. There is no better deal on the market.

If you got questions, please send us an email at support@txf-express.com.

How to Import TXF files into TurboTax and ProSeries?

2010-03-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

TXF Express products and services can generate a TXF file that can be imported into different tax preparation software including TurboTax Desktop, TaxCut, ProSeries etc.

Import Data from a TXF file into TurboTax Desktop

1. Create a TXF file using TXF Express products and services. You can choose TXF Online, TXF Creator, iScheduleD Portfolio Manager.

2. Start a new return or open your existing return in TurboTax.

3. From the TurboTax File menu, select Import and then select From Accounting Software.

4. On the Choose a Program to Import From (Windows) or the Tell Us Where to Get Your Tax Information (Mac) screen, select the program that you want to import data from. If importing from a .txf file, select Other Financial Software (TXT file). Click Continue.

5. Select the .txf file you want to import. If you don't see the file in the list, click Browse To Find File (Windows) or Browse (Mac). Select your file from the location where you stored it, then click Open.

6. Click Import Now (Windows) or Continue (Mac).

7. Select the information you want to import into TurboTax, and then click Import Now.

8. Repeat these steps for each file that you want to import to the program.

Import Data from a TXF file into ProSeries

1. Create a TXF file using TXF Express products and services. You can choose TXF Online, TXF Creator, iScheduleD Portfolio Manager.

2. Start the ProSeries program, then open the client return to which the imported financial data should import to.

3. Go to the Import menu and select TXF Import.

4. In the Select TXF File for Import dialog box, select the TXF file that was created in step 1.

5. Click Open.

6. Once the import is complete, a new dialog box will appear that states Import Completed Successfully.

Note: The ProSeries program imports the data from the TXF file to the client's return immediately if there isn't any data in the client's return. If there is data in the clients return, a Destination for TXF Imported Information dialog box or Replace Existing Information dialog box might be seen.

iScheduleD - Our Wash Sale Schedule D Generator Software

2010-03-07T16:08:00.001-08:00

We had a great first year since we released txf creator in 2008. A lot of customers are happy with this simple, fast and most importantly, inexpensive solution. Download.com editors gave us a 4 star rating and recommended our product. Note that download.com is one of the most prestigious and largest internet download directory websites. The editors actually execute the software programs and rate them. The high rating we get from download.com is far different from those awards granted by some software download websites just to get a reciprocal link. Our customers also gave very positive reviews on our products. TXF creator is often in the top 5 tax software downloads on download.com.

At the same times, we got a lot of inquiries from customers about whether we support wash sales in our software. Wash sale calculation turns out to be one of the most intricate issues in tax preparation. If you had patience, you probably could type all the transactions into Turbotax without any help from software. But as long as you have wash sale, it requires far more than patience. How could an active trader ever go though hundreds of the transactions, pair up the wash sales and calculate the capital gains/losses? That is just a mission impossible for human eyes. You certainly need help of software. There are a lot of wash sale calculator in the market. But none of them comes cheap. Most of them are in the $100+ range and require annual subscription fees. So we thought why couldn't we develop a software that does the job but also won't break your bank. And now here it comes, iScheduleD, offered from $14.99!

iScheduleD Portfolio Manager manages stock and option trades from multiple online brokers. This software can calculate wash sales, manage stock splits and reverse splits, generate and print Form 1040 Schedule D reports. You can easily import capital gains and losses into tax software such as TurboTax and TaxCut. Here is a brief look at one of the screenshots.

This screenshot is an example of how you would see the transactions after you import it into iScheduleD. Those highlighted lines show the wash sales detected by iScheduleD. iScheduleD would correctly calculate captain gains and losses. Remember this is just one nice feature of iScheduleD. There are many other neat features for you to explore.

It does not make much sense to annually subscribe a software product you have paid a couple hundred hard-earned dollars. iScheduleD Portfolio Manager does not require annual subscription. You buy the software at an affordable price starting from 14.99. You can keep using it as long as it works for you.

Here is a comparison of the pricing of the wash sale calculators on the market. We admit some of them have advanced features (which an average trader probably would never need). So it is your decision what you need and what you would choose.

Product Name	Price	Annual Subscription
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Basic	$14.99 for 1000 transactions	No*
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Standard	$19.99 for 2000 transactions	No*
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Professional	$24.99 for 5000 transactions	No*
iScheduleD Portfolio Manager Unlimited	$29.99 for unlimited transactions	No*
GainsKeeper Investor150	$69 for 150 transactions	Yes
GainsKeeper Trader1000	$179 for 1000 transactions	Yes
GainsKeeper Trader5000	$499 for 5000 transactions	Yes
GainsKeeper TradeElite	$659 for up to 20,0000 transactions	Yes
Tradelog 200	$69 for 200 transactions	Yes
Tradelog 600	$119 for 600 transactions	Yes
Tradelog 1500	$169 for 1500 transactions	Yes
Tradelog unlimited	$297 for unlimited transaction	Yes
Simplytrack Professional	$49.99	Yes

*: If your brokers change the data format, you might have to purchase a updated version.
**: All the quoted prices were collected from the respective websites on March 7, 2010.

How to Import your Stock Trades into TurboTax or Taxcut

2009-03-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Now it is the tax season again. Last year was not a good year for most stock traders. It is painful enough to face the reality that you stock value tanks well under water. Yet you still have to face another pain to sort out all your losses (and gains? any one?) for preparing your tax. Some brokers provide direct integration of stock trade data into tax software. But many others do not. So what can you do?
1. you can manually input each of your single transaction into the tax software. Remember you also have to calculate your capital gain.
2. you can hire a tax consultant to do it for you if you have too many trades. That does not come cheap...

If you don't like either of the options, there is a middle ground. You can convert your stock trade files into TXF (tax exchange format) files. Most tax software accepts TXF files and generates Form 1040 Schedule D for you. Turbo Tax and TaxCut surely do. TXF Express LLC specializes in generating txf files for various brokers. The price of the service starts as low as $2.99. That is even cheaper than a cup of Mocha from starbucks! It saves you from the tedious and error-prone process of manual inputting, and many cups of coffee to keep you awake. Here is how TXF Express service works.

TXF Online

There is nothing simpler than this. Download the stock trade files from your broker's website. Register your email, upload your file to the website, checkout the purchase order via Paypal and you are done. You are going to receive an email with your TXF file instantly. Here is the screenshots of TXF Online.

1. Register your email

2. Upload File

3. Add to Cart. You can verify the result by comparing the computed "Total Gain/Loss" with the number reported by your broker.

4. Checkout

Review the items in your shopping cart and use PayPal to checkout securely.

5. Review Order

6. Download File