Investors & landlords

Hello all, first time posting here after about 10 hours now working at this issue. I believe I can add some context as well as provide assistance to the rest in fixing the issue.

Who is Responsible and What is the Problem?

Let's start with what was already said, this is not specific to a certain trading platform. It is an import error specific to certain clearinghouse's these platforms use. From what I've read here it would seem it's related to National Securities and Apex Clearinghouse. These are the preferred for a number of the new millennial style trading platforms like M1, Robinhood, Stash, etc.

The problem is an import error with Turbo tax. It isn't your operating system, nor if it is updated, supported, or whatever else the "expert" on the phone tries to have you check. As I told them on the phone last night 2 hours in: Checking your OS with this error is akin to checking your circuit breakers when the power is out because the pole outside is laying on the ground. Hint: It's not your breakers! 

What Import Data is Effected

As noted in this post, one error is the Date Acquired (Box 1b) and it is specifically related to stocks labeled as "Various." Another post here noted errors with the Wash Sale (Box 1g) and I found that the "Sales selection" box was also being left blank.

If you're lucky enough to have a more mainstream company like Schwab, TD, Fidelity, etc to compare to you will quickly find that all of their information imports correctly. Find a stock that has various and turbotax is selected to various. Likewise with wash sales. Finally, note the sales selection (For short term covered stocks) in the table view on turbo tax it should say Box A. Every stock like this from my Apex clearinghouse said Box B incorrectly. Box 1b for Date Acquired was left blank. 

The Fix

1) If you're a trader like me most of your reporting will be short term covered basis. Turbotax is not importing this data correctly at all and the fix is simple: remember when I mentioned the chart view showing Box B? Well it should be showing Box A anytime you have a covered short term transaction. Go through each one individually make sure the first drop down in turbotax for "Sales selection" is correctly selected to "Short-term basis reported to IRS (covered)." Note: I didn't have long term gains in this report to check so I cannot verify if that is or isn't an issue. Look at your tax document and just make sure the type of gains match the turbotax selection. 

2) Look through your stocks for all stocks listed as Various for their date acquired. One by one go through and correct their selection in turbotax by going to box 1b, clicking "something other than a date", and in the drop down select "Various (or more than one date)." This will correct the error related to Date Acquired.

3) If you get wash sale errors do the same thing for stocks listed as having wash sales. In turbotax one of the last boxes to check says "I have other boxes on my 1099-B to enter", click it. It will populate a few more boxes including box 1g for "Wash sale loss disallowed", fill your wash loss value in here. 

Important Step Here:Once all this is done don't just go back to review or some other section. Make sure you click continue through the entire tax process (the next page will be something like "let's check your capital gains so far"). If you don't complete the process this way then it won't trigger turbotax to redo it's review process. If you did this part correctly then when you click review on the left side it should show the turbotax lady in the banner that says "Let's get ready for your expert review." After which it does that fun little wait period where it looks like it's reviewing stuff. 

If you click review and it goes straight to the old error without doing a new review then you skipped the important step above. 😉

Hopefully this helps all of you and have a great day. Time to finally finish filing and get out of here!!!