"This means that the sale is first and the buy (to close) is later."
@model4sun
No.
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.
