DianeW777
Expert Alumni

Business & farm

Of course - let me explain.

 

When there is no gain in the year of a wash sale, what does this mean? "deducting a capital loss on the sale against the capital gain"

  • That simply means that you cannot offset a gain, should you have one, by using your wash sale loss.
  • The wash sale loss is suspended until all the shares of that stock are disposed of without a repurchase of the same 30 days before or after the sale. 

What does it mean to say "then you can simply enter the same cost basis as the selling price".

To be sure you do not use any of the wash sale loss, by using the same cost as sales price, it maintains the integrity of the wash sale by disallowing any loss on your tax return for the current tax year.  The loss is added to your cost basis of the shares you still hold which increases the cost basis to use at the time of full disposition/sale of the wash sale stock.  This occurred for you because it was so close to the end of the year when the transactions took place.

 

Note:  It's important to keep good records because you want to take advantage when you dispose of the stock in this situation.  The broker will always know when a wash sale occurs, but they will not record or potentially know when it ends. This is completely left to you to maintain the records.

 

Please update further if necessary.

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