@Anonymous wrote:
even if day trading is your only occupation, your earnings are not considered to be earned income. This means that day traders, whether classified for tax purposes as investors or traders, don’t have to pay the self-employment tax on their trading income.
That's not automatically true. It depends on the facts and circumstances. See this article.
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc429
If you are self-employed, you pay SE tax on your net profit, but you can deduct your investment costs. If you are a casual trader, you don't pay SE tax but you can't deduct your costs. (The miscellaneous itemized deduction that included investment costs was eliminated as part of tax reform in 2018.)
There are also some answers here, although the threads are long, complicated and old (the 2019 dates are not correct due to a software glitch).
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/business-taxes/discussion/will-turbo-tax-work-if-i-am-a-full-time-trader-in-commodities-self-employed-formed-a-sole/00/59103
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/retirement/discussion/i-am-a-day-trader-how-exactly-do-i-report-my-investment-income-50-000-in-losses-actually-into/00/33582/page/3
