Lets use a simpler example....
Bought 500 shares of SCMR at $100/share: $50,000
Sold 500 shares of SCMR at $ 90/share: $45,000
Bought 500 shares of SCMR at $ 90/share: $45,000
Sold 500 shares of SCMR at $ 85/share: $42,500
All within a single day. Currently no positions in JNPR for the rest of the year.
The reason I raise the question is because most daytraders make hundreds of trades like this, so they'll constantly be rolling their non-deductible loss of the prior transaction, in this case, $5000, into the cost-basis of the very next next purchase, which could be two-minutes later. My second JNPR BUY really is $40,000 ($45,000 less $5,000 loss from previous sale). Finally, the last sale for $42,500 results in a "wash-sale" gain of $2,500 ($42,500- $40,000). In short, this number could balloon regardless of loss or gain.
... and I don't see TurboTax making this calculation, which leads me to believe what they say is true (or, they simply missed the boat!)
BTW, nearly every IRS example I've seen provides only the example of the "one-shot deal", e.g. Bot, Sold, Bot, DONE. |
