2024 Snider Method Tax Preparation
Tax filing season is once again upon us. For those of us who trade the Snider Investment Method, filing our 2024 tax returns will be simpler than in 2023, due to the fact that the vast majority of our clients have traded at TradeStation for the entirety of 2024. As a result, we will only have to download one set of tax documents for 2024.
Let’s take a few moments to go over how to obtain the proper tax documents from the TradeStation website.
Downloading Your 1099-Consolidated
To download your tax documents from TradeStation, go to TradeStation’s website and log into the Client Center. After logging in, you should be presented with a screen displaying each account that is open under your user profile. Go to the account that you wish to download tax documents for and click the account number on the screen.
After clicking on the account number, you will be presented with a new window with several options on a toolbar across the top. The default screen will be your Balances, which will display a history of your account balances year-to-date. On the top toolbar, locate the heading for Statements and click it.
After you arrive on the Statements tab, locate the Selection dropdown, which should be defaulted to Confirmations. Click on the word Confirmations to view your other options, one of which will be “1099.” Click on 1099 to access the 1099-Consolidated form for your account.
Please note: the menu will display both the 1099-Consolidated form for 2024 and last year’s form for 2023. Please make sure that you download the correct tax form for 2024; you can discern this by noting the date for each document. The 2024 1099-Consolidated will have a date in February of 2025.
The 1099-Consolidated is the official form used to report your transactions and income on your tax return. In the past, you may have also used a Form 8949. This form is not required to actually file your taxes. The 8949 (or Schedule D) can be included to provide more detail and used to reconcile situations where the reported figures don’t match the numbers on your 1099. This should not happen under normal Snider Method trading.
While TradeStation does not provide an actual Form 8949 for you to download, you can still access much of the same information in various formats. They can be found under the Tax Center menu item on the top toolbar.
The Tax Center will include a section where you can download your tax activity. You can select a format that you would like to download the information in (including CSV, Quicken, Gainskeeper and TradeLog), a date range that you would like to search in (this will most likely be January 1st to December 31st of 2024), and filters you would like to apply (i.e. stock trades only, option trades only, or only long or short positions).
Turbo Tax users can import their 1099 directly into Turbo Tax when preparing your taxes. They have a great instructional video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oxVVWyrDiQ
Form 1099-R
For those of you who have tax-advantaged traditional or rollover IRAs, and who took distributions from those accounts in 2024, you will be provided a Form 1099-R by TradeStation.
TradeStation does not provide your 1099-R online. Your form was mailed directly to the address on file at the end of January. If you misplaced this document, please let us know. We can request a digital copy from our contacts at TradeStation.
The filing of our 2024 taxes should be much simpler than 2023, due to the fact that we will only need documents from TradeStation for this year. If you are in need of any assistance in locating your tax documents, please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to assist you.
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