Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders?

sam992116 — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:15:52 GMT

How many trades turbotax now can handle? I thought in prior year limit was 2000 trades and for this year I am seeing they list as 10000 trades. Is this change? or does accuracy goes down after certain number of trades?

Turbotax is Tax software, and many accountant suggest for traders they use accounting software like Tradelog or gainskeeper to generate 8949 rather than relying on your broker issued 1099 which is used by Trubotax. One of the reason they mention is wash sale accounting esp. trader is trading Options which are very different rules.

Re: Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders?

DianeW777 — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:50:16 GMT

TurboTax is able to handle approximately 10,000 trades. Accuracy should not be affected.

Review the article below for additional details. Information is provided for both TurboTax Online and TurboTax Desktop.

How do I enter a large number of transactions into TurboTax?

Wash sales require recordkeeping on the part of the owners of the stock and should not be included with other transactions.

Wash sales cannot be combined into section totals. They should be entered individually so that you can track your cost basis and know when you are allowed to use the information on a final sale.

Wash Sale Rule Defined:

A wash sale occurs when an investor sells or trades a security at a loss, and within 30 days before or after, buys another one that is substantially similar.
It also happens if the individual sells the security at a loss, and their spouse or a company they control buys a substantially similar security within 30 days.
The wash-sale rule prevents taxpayers from deducting a capital loss on the sale against the capital gain of other stock.

Affect on Cost Basis:

The loss that occurs on a wash sale is added to the cost basis of the shares purchased that created the wash sale.
When all shares are sold and there is no repurchase, that increased cost basis will be used in full and used to determine gain or loss.

As long as you are tracking the wash sales and are not using them on the tax return when you are not allowed, then you can simply enter the same cost basis as the selling price. This will reconcile your tax return with your Form 1099-B Proceeds which is what the IRS is comparing.

Wash Sale ends:

The wash sale disallowed is not added to the net gain/loss rather it is adjusted and suspended so that it does not affect the total gain or loss for any pending wash sales. The rub is that the broker only knows when a wash sale occurs, not when a wash sale no longer exists. This can spill over between two tax years. Likewise you can have a wash sale during a tax year, and then fully dispose of the stock in the same year which would eliminate the wash sale rule for the final sale of the same stock.

It's up to you to know when you no longer have to consider the wash sale rule for a particular stock/investment.

Example:

X bought 5 shares of ZZZ stock, at $5 per share, then sold it for $3 per share, however immediately before the original 3 shares were sold, X bought another 5 shares at $5.00 per share.

$25 for the first block of shares

15 is the proceeds creating a $10 loss

The $10 loss is now added to the cost of the new shares for an overall cost basis of $35.

Once the second block of shares is sold (5 shares with cost basis of $30) without any repurchase with in the 60 day window (30 days before or 30 days after the sale), and if they are sold at a loss, then no wash sale exists on the sale, and a loss is allowed.

@sam992116

Re: Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders?

sam992116 — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:12:25 GMT

Thanks

topic Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders? in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders?

Re: Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders?

Re: Accounting vs Tax softwares for Traders?