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Schedule D
Some of the most time-consuming tax returns I have prepared have been the
ones with several stock market transactions. Since I do charge by the time I
spend, these have been extremely expensive for my clients.
Much of the time is spent sifting through stock broker reports trying to
match up both sides of the deals (purchase and sale). There are a few
stock brokers that actually put that info in a very easy to follow side by side
year-end report. (See below for more details.) However, most don't do that simple task.
Both for my clients and anyone else interested in reducing their tax
preparation costs, I have prepared this basic
Excel spreadsheet that can be used to assemble the data required for
Schedule D. It can be filled in on the computer and then sent to me via
email or printed out and completed by hand. Unfortunately, my tax
preparation program (Lacerte) doesn't have the capability to import the data
directly from the Excel file; so we will still have to key it in. However,
having the data this well organized will save me huge amounts of time.
Based on
our recent work on actual tax returns, the
following stockbrokers provide the easy to use year-end summaries of stock
transactions. We are not specifically recommending the use of these firms.
However, their practice of supplying the good type of summary reports has saved
my clients huge amounts on their tax preparation fees. I hope to see more
stockbrokers follow this approach.
Edward Jones
Based on our recent work on actual tax
returns, the following stockbrokers provide very poor year-end reports.
These have cost our clients several thousands of dollars in additional tax prep
costs than if more useful reports had been provided. We are not
specifically advising against the use of these firms. However you should
know that tax prep costs will be considerably higher.
Charles Schwab
This page was updated:
Thursday, September 20, 2001 10:45 PM
Ozarks Time by KMK
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