I've had a good experience this year with Fidelity and etrade providing Form 8949 data that is compatible with TurboTax that meets the new reporting requirements. IB, on the other hand, has failed.
Here is their latest reply to my ticket below:
There were some accounts that the .txf is unavailable. In the initial reply, I described in detail this issue that is on TT side. IB has worked to update its documents in order to assist customers with uploads to TT. Initially, TT did not produce software compatible with the new IRS reporting requirements. IB understands that has been repaired, but not all details have been loaded. Consequently, IB is unable to provide you a .txf file when you have codes that is not recognized by TT. IB is unaware if this was repaired at TT. However, IB is no longer regenerating files after multiple occasions of trying to assist. I recommend that you download .csv convert to MS Excel (make any necessary adjustments) and then contact TT on how to load the data into TT.
That outcome is pathetic, in my opinion. Unlike Fidelity and etrade, IB failed.
Beyond just failing, they also try to blame their failure on someone else. While I recognize that Intuit is not necessarily a first-rate performer, I don't buy passing all the blame to Intuit because I didn't have this problem with Fidelity or etrade.
I've downloaded IB's PDF and .CSV files. The PDF file is fine, but the.csv file is a mess -- columns don't even line up when I open it with Excel. If there's any point in my contacting Intuit to ask them how to convert IB's messy .csv file into something useful for TT, I don't see it.
Given that only one of the three file formats offered by IB is not a disaster, and that is the PDF file, I'm wondering what to do with it. It seems my choices are either to:
- manually type pages of data into TurboTax and hope that I don't make a lot of typos
- just attach the PDF "worksheet" forms to my 1040 in lieu of the 8949 forms for my IB trades, since it is the same data as on the IRS-style forms, but just not in IRS format.
I wonder if the latter option would be okay. A reason to think it might be okay is that it used to be that filers were allowed to attach their raw brokerage statements to their return rather than filling out the D-1 statement which listed all of their capital gains transactions. The reporting requirements have changed this year, so that form D-1 is replaced by the new 8949 form that requires data input from the broker.
Maybe that will work. Here are the IRS instructions for 8949:
Exception to reporting each transaction on a separate line. Instead of reporting each of your transactions on a separate line of Form 8949, you can report them on an attached statement containing all the same information as Form 8949 and in a similar format. Use as many attached statements as you need. Enter the combined totals from all your attached statements on a Form 8949 with the appropriate box checked. For example, report on line 3 of a Form 8949 with box A checked all long-term gains and losses from transactions your broker reported to you on a statement showing that the basis of the property sold was reported to the IRS. If you have statements from more than one broker, report the totals from each broker on a separate line.
irs.gov |
