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TradeMatcher.com

FAQ's

How long will the process take?

Normally, the results are returned to you by the next business day.  If any additional time is required, we will let you know immediately on first contact.  A processing time beyond 24 hours would generally only occur during the week of a tax filing deadline.

 

Do you account for wash sales? Yes, we do.  All ordinary traders must report and correctly apply the wash sale rule over their transactions. We do this, and generate the wash sale items correctly on the Schedule D-1 continuation pages. Of course, if you have elected mark-to-market accounting and are not subject to the wash sale rule, we can generate the correct forms as well.  

 

Do you handle mark-to-market accounting (MTM) or generate Form 4797?

 

 

Yes, we do.  Additionally, for the Schedule 4797 we produce a worksheet like the Schedule D-1 continuation pages as the IRS had stated that even for Form 4797 the full detail is required.  We provide an appropriate detail sheet in pdf form.

 

Do you offer your software for sale? We no longer offer our software for sale.  It simply did not prove economical to support the software at the price point at which we can do the process as a service.    We have found that the best all-around solution  was to split the process so that our clients need only obtain their dataset from the brokerage, and let us concentrate our expertise on any special circumstances in the dataset.  

 So the tradeoff from your standpoint is that we can do this for you for $99.95 as a service.  If you must have software to do it yourself, then you would generally have to pay substantially more each year and learn the features of the software and the details regarding the applicable rules.  Vendors which provide such software include Gainskeeper, TradeAccountant, TradeLog, etc.  We invite you to compare their offerings because we are confident that if you do, you will find our method far less of a burden on you for substantially less cost!  In addition, we believe our application of the wash sale rule is the most accurate in the industry.  With thousands of applications since 1998 we have never had a client report that the IRS challenged our application.  In two instances, our clients have reported that they used our documentation to correct instances where their brokerages had misreported their activity to the IRS.

 

What exactly will I receive from you? The ordinary trader will receive pdf documents by email of the actual Schedule D with trading totals completed for the dataset(s) provided.  You will also receive the long and short term Schedule D-1 continuation pages in pdf form which contain the full detail required by the IRS.  You will also generally receive a spreadsheet formatted document in the event you wish to perform any additional analysis on the results or to document a basis in positions still open.  If you have elected mark-to-market accounting, or otherwise specify for us to do so, we will generate the Form 4797 and an accompanying detail worksheet in place of the Schedule D and D-1 pages.

 

Is the process secure? Yes.  Because you retrieve your trade history, we never access your trading account or have any account password.  We don't need any identifying information related to the account, only the raw trade history for which we do the matching and return the results.  When compared with software that directly accesses your account our process is far more secure.  Additionally, our payment process is handled through a third party processor (PayPal) which specializes in that business, and we never receive your credit card details directly.

The only downside is that because we do not accept or receive your social security number you will need to manually add the identifying information on the pdf printout.  In contrast, any software that you might use to directly download the transactions from your account poses a potential security risk and is only as good as the vendor which created it.  We invite you to compare our transparency by giving us a call and then try and do the same with regard to any other vendor you are considering.  Can you find  their principal or founder?  Can you reach a person there by phone?  We take pride in our firm and believe our approach is inherently the most secure method.  As an attorney, Mr. Durden knows well the importance of maintaining confidentiality and the firm makes extraordinary efforts with regard to your trade history as well.

 

Can your results be exported to tax software programs ? We can produce a TXF file which is the standard import file for such programs.  HOWEVER, the leading tax software vendors simply do not correctly handle wash sale items.  If you have any doubt that this is the case, we invite you to review the opinion of our competitors in this regard.  In fact,  the TXF format (even as of latest version .041)  is not consistent with correctly entering a wash sale transaction line without increasing the total sales (which is the reconciliation check the IRS receives from your brokerage).  We are attempting to get the format itself amended to allow a straight pass through of a correctly calculated wash transaction so that the tax software can simply import our file and use it directly as is without alteration.   However, until that should occur, what we recommend is that you simply use our totals carried into the software, generate a paper filing and then use a printout of our prepared Schedule D-1 continuation pages thereafter which will correctly show the wash sale items.  If you are using a tax professional, you would simply provide our Schedules to your professional and they will generally use them directly.

 

Do you offer discounts for multiple accounts? It depends upon the circumstances.  In general, we do not because most of our staff time is in the initial processing of the data sets.  There is generally no savings in our office and usually more staff time is involved because special care must be taken to ensure that all of the data sets are transformed to the identical format before matching and additional time is required to make sure the entire results match up with multiple brokerage totals.  Please remember, you are getting approximately twenty to thirty minutes worth of a professional's time working on your account for the price of our service and there is not much room for additional discount.   Occasionally, a customer has multiple datasets at the same brokerage where little or no additional review is required.  If you feel your situation might fall into this category, feel free to call to see if special arrangements might be made. 

 

How can you offer such service at this price?  We hope you agree this is an exceptional service for the cost.  There are several factors which enable us to offer better quality at lower cost than is typical in the industry.  In order to understand how we can do this, let us reveal a bit of our "back story."   First, our firm is very small and "flat."  It consists of attorney Wayne Durden and two executive assistants.  Mr. Durden has a combination of specialties including law, software development and long time active trading experience.  As a result, we can develop our software "in house" and make changes to reflect IRS clarifications or form changes more quickly and at less cost than our competitors.  If you call us, you will almost certainly speak directly with Wayne, as he makes it a point to be the direct customer contact whenever possible.  Second, the firm is located adjacent to Mr. Durden's residence, so office expenses, commute times, etc. are minimized.  Because our software work flow is automated once the dataset is reviewed and placed in the proper format, the actual staff time is about as low as can possibly be achieved.   Even so,  a checklist of factors is automatically applied to ensure  there can be no doubt as to accuracy or correctness.  The combination of all of these factors allows us to offer an exceptional service at this price.  Furthermore, to dispel any doubt with regard to our capabilities, we do not require any payment until the process is completed and you have results in hand.  Finally, if you have any questions regarding the qualifications of the firm, Mr. Durden has a long history of achievement.  He graduated valedictorian of both his high school class and of his college class, and was inducted into the Order of the Coif at the completion of his law school study.   He practiced as a trial attorney for ten years at one of the most reputable law firms in Savannah, Georgia before leaving the practice to become a full time trader and software developer.  He has received three American Jurisprudence Awards in the subject areas of Property, Evidence and Trusts and Estates.  As a trial attorney he defended some of the largest corporations in the United States as sole or lead counsel in cases of devastating or catastrophic injury.  He also served as plaintiff's counsel in large cases including a class action suit successfully concluded against the State of Georgia.  Despite success as a trial attorney, Mr. Durden's passion was in software development and a life style that would allow him more availability to his two children.  This was the basis for the formation of this firm, and these are the reasons you can get an unlimited number of trades correctly matched and properly documented for only $99.95 for a single trade year, single account.  If you still have any doubts about whether we are for you, simply give us a call at the number below and speak with Wayne.  We expect that within 5 minutes of discussion, if you need a service we offer, you will choose to become one of our recurring clients.

 

What if my brokerage only offers a pdf format of my trade data? In general, a pdf format is not our preferred method of receiving your trade data.  The formatting is rarely uniform even where the appearance seems to be.   Conversion utilities are rarely completely successful in generating a uniform data file from the original pdf.  Fortunately, in almost all cases, another option is available from your brokerage such as Excel or CSV.  If you can't find it directly, normally a call to your brokerage's support staff will quickly walk you through the download process.  If pdf remains absolutely the only format available call us to discuss your situation. 

 

Will the results reconcile with my 1099 figures? It is commonly thought that the Schedule D sales figure should exactly match the 1099 figure.  In reality, the reconciliation is often multistep.  Let us explain in some detail and with some background first.  The root factor behind the lack of a direct reconciliation is that in reality two different things are being shown.  This has a basis in the fact that the information the IRS requires from the brokerage is really not the same information required of the taxpayer who is reporting gains or losses on capital transactions.  The IRS requires the broker to report the total amount of sales in the tax period, and the requirement has historically only been for equities (while most brokerages now supply an additional figure for options as well).  The taxpayer is reporting on capital gains so the IRS can get its portion.  This requires a closed or round trip transaction which is the event  triggering the gain or loss.  Options are part of the capital gains of the taxpayer.  The fact is that there is often a divergence between the total sales and the sales that are part of a closed gain triggering event.    If a taxpayer had an open short position at year end, that sales transaction would be part of the brokerage report of total sales, but it would not yet have triggered a capital gain reporting event for the taxpayer.  While an open short entry can be placed on the Schedule D to explain this situation, if the taxpayer closed a short from a prior year, those sales figures would be in this year's gain report from the taxpayer, but would not be in the brokerage sales figure and so the figures would still differ.. 

  So to make a long story short, if the trader was solely a day trader  in stocks with no carryover positions, then the figure should reconcile completely. Otherwise, the crosscheck involves adding in options sales to the brokerage sales figure and netting out the short sale positions carried at year end.   In any case, the taxpayer shouldn't worry, our results will be calculated properly  for the dataset supplied, and the IRS is now well aware of the limitations in that it has asked for "apples" from the brokerage and "oranges" from the taxpayer.

 

Call us at (912) 897-0435  if you have any questions.

$ 99.95 covers any single account for a single tax year no matter how many trades

Have questions or need more information?

Feel free to  contact us for specific details. We are always happy to answer your questions.  Our primary growth is by word-of-mouth, and we would be delighted to add you to our list of satisfied customers.

(912) 897-0435

wdurden@tradematcher.com