How to report details:
In order to close a short you must go to the market and acquire some securities.
The acquired date is the date you closed the short sale.
For Stocks, the disposed date is two business days later (settlement).
Options settle in one day.
If you did not have a loss, the disposed date is the same as the acquired date.
Note to those for whom it is not obvious: Date Acquired and Date Disposed refer to Columns (b) and (c) on Form 8949 that you will report to the IRS.
Your trade date is the date you closed the position and goes in (b). Settlement date must be calculated taking into account weekends and market holidays.
From this you can see that a short is always a short term capital gain or loss, no matter how long you are short.
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assignment:
If a put you write is exercised and you buy the underlying stock, decrease your basis in the stock by the amount you received for the put.
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If a call you write is exercised and you sell the underlying stock, increase your amount realized on the sale of the stock by the amount you received for the call when figuring your gain or loss. The gain or loss is long term or short term depending on your holding period of the stock.
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Option write, expires:
Since you are short, the Date Acquired shows the date of expiration,
Enter "Expired" in 8949 column e) cost, but Turbo Tax won't let you do that directly so
you have to go through the "Add More Details" screen and select "Expired". Last I tried, this had no effect either.
I add "Expired" in the description.
Your gain is the amount you received and it is a Short Term Capital Gain.
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Some brokers give you a 1099-B in accordance with IRS reporting requirements and some brokers do not.
@carekeibs
