How to complete "needs info" on 1099B sale of PPLT when monthly expenses from PPLT are shown on 1099B. appears something should be done on form 8949

[Seltzer]

This is explantion given my broker:
What you are seeing on the 1099-b are Principal Payments that were paid by the trust. The principal payments are not credited to the account but are dollar amounts that were allocated directly by the company to reduce the basis in the position and offset the investment expenses listed on the Nonreportable Transactions section.

In essence, the trust is selling the underlying commodity (principal payments on the 1099-B) to cover the expenses for operating the trust (investment expenses on the Nonreportable Transactions section).  

My question is how and where do I enter on form 8949 when step questions do not give info.

[RobertB4444]

Sale of commodities in order to pay the fees necessary to manage your account are entered just like any other sales into the 1099-B section of TurboTax.  Since 2017 the expenses associated with these stock sales are no longer deductible on individual tax returns.

So just enter the sales as usual and you should be all set.

[Seltzer]

Thank you for your reply.  I downloaded directly from Broker so all data was entered auto matically by turbotax.  I DO understand the why the trust had those expenses, what I don't know how to do is deal with those $ numbers on the worksheet labeled "capital asset sale worksheet" that lists them from the download from the brokerage and shows "NOT DONE" with pink spaces needing info on the quick entry table.  Since turbo tax entered those number with the brokerage download, I presume they are needed, but the step by step instructions do not cover this.  pink boxes asking for basis but this was entered on cap gains form, and the brokerage marked NO on basis reported it IRS and yes on info on 1099-B.

[RaifH · Accepted solution]

The cost basis for the sales to cover expenses can be determined from this document. 

If you take the number from the third column and divide it by the second column, that will give you the fraction of platinum used to cover expenses. Multiply that by your total cost basis to get your cost basis for the sale.

Then for the next month, you reduce your cost basis for the sale from the previous month. @Jack100000 has suggested an excel spreadsheet to calculate this for you in the bottom of this post related to GLD shares which has similar reporting. 

[Seltzer]

wow, thank you so much, your reply is really appreciated!

quite a few steps to do manually

is it unfair for me to have the expectation that TurboTax should provide this in their step-by-step directions and do the calculations?