So I usually do my own taxes with either TaxAct or TurboTax. Its normally pretty straightforward with a couple of W2's and maybe a 1099 or so, with a few deductions for education, home improvement, etc. Last year I played around on Zecco.com and bought and sold stocks for half the year. I only invested about 2000 dollars total, and just bought and sold stuff to get a feel for the market/stocks in general. Now I have to do my taxes, and I have no idea how to account for the numerous trades I made or how to input that information into a tax form. Any advice would be appreciated. Would this be worthy of taking my taxes to a JacksonHewitt/HR Block? Thanks!
You have to line item each item sold and bought and the profit and loss you had. You don't have to put down any that you bought and didn't sell. The main thing is to make sure you put the ones you sold and the corresponding purchase and sell date and amount bought and sold. If you don't feel comfortable doing it then get a professional to do it.
Dang, that sounds painful. I bought and sold like a madman. Many times buying a stock in the morning, and selling it before close. Any idea how much a professional would charge for something like this?
Honestly it will all vary. Yeah I know what you mean. I did the same thing one year and had a ton to put on my taxes and it was a pain for him. I would call a tax office and tell them you have a normal tax to get prepared with the addition of stock sales and see what they quote you. Since you said you really don't have anything else on there as far as deductions etc. Also the company you trade with usually has a year end statement they send you will all the info to make life easier on you and your tax guy.
Zecco should have sent you a brokerage statement with your closed out trades over the year. Or even better, Turbotax can directly log into many sites and download all your stock trades on it's own so you don't have to do any of the work - no idea if Zecco is one of the ones it can access, but I would assume so. Just go to Import Financial Information and see if you can do that.
Turbo tax was great dealling with transactions through fidelity. They download everything. If you are lucky, you can do the same.
^ This. TurboTax will allow you to logon to your broker and it will download all the tax info. You might have to fill in a box or 2 at the very end (tax state) but TT will tell you what is missing and it's pretty plain what you need to fill in. I made a ton of trades - @100 of in-out-in-out. All that was transferred over.
Awesome!!! That helps so much. I guess Zecco won't be ready till March 17th, but that tool is so awesome. I can also import stuff from my MINT account and check if there are any tax related forms my banks have released. Sweet. Thanks, Repped!
