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You cannot deduct losses from sales or trades of stock or securities in a wash sale unless the loss was incurred in the ordinary course of your business as a dealer in stock or securities.
A wash sale occurs when you sell or trade stock or securities at a loss and within 30 days before or after the sale you:
Buy substantially identical stock or securities,
Acquire substantially identical stock or securities in a fully taxable trade,
Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities, or
Acquire substantially identical stock for your individual retirement account (IRA) or Roth IRA.
when all else fails call the 1-800 number for irs and ask for the cap gains guys.
My guess is 30 calendar days (otherwise they would have said business days).
But I would think you would based on the settlement dates of both purchase and sale recorded by your broker.
But you didn't want a guess. so maybe an irs guy is reading the site or a tax accountant.
irs.
Try calling 1-800-829-1040
but then again I've had IRS guys give me the wrong answers and had to speak to managers to get the correct answer, because I thought the first guy was wrong (which he was).
Curiously, I haven't yet found a definitive statement that the same definition of "acquisition date" applies to wash sales as to holding periods for long term/short term.
I've been planning on posting a bit on the intricacies of the wash sale rule (tacking holding periods and selling sub-lots) because I'm currently dealing with this with Fidelity and have already had to explain it to them a couple of times. (None of the reps I spoke with had ever seen a lot classified not as "long" or "short", but as "fractured" - their terminology for a single lot, some of whose shares are long term, some short term, due to a wash sale.)
That's going to take me some time to write up in a comprehensible manner, so it might be a couple of days before you see it. For people who really get into the nitty gritty of optimizing gains, its an interesting corner case. Otherwise, you may just react: "why would anyone even think about this?" More to come.
I was figuring calendar days AND trade date, but wanted to check with you AND allow a cushion of a couple of weeks. feh. These are the Blue Meanies we're dealing with boys and girls, and I would rather not take any chances.
In addition, for the others because of the time of year, they use the term 'substantially identical' which when applied to funds and ETFs opens a very large doorway for us weasels. For example, I think it might raise their notice if I sold S&P 500 Index fund and bought another from a different house, but if I sell one muni bond fund and bought a different one from a different house, I should be good.
Comments
when all else fails call the 1-800 number for irs and ask for the cap gains guys.
My guess is 30 calendar days (otherwise they would have said business days).
But I would think you would based on the settlement dates of both purchase and sale recorded by your broker.
But you didn't want a guess. so maybe an irs guy is reading the site or a tax accountant.
irs.
Try calling 1-800-829-1040
but then again I've had IRS guys give me the wrong answers and had to speak to managers to get the correct answer, because I thought the first guy was wrong (which he was).
http://www.fairmark.com/capgain/wash/ws101.htm
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch14.html#en_US_2012_publink1000172339
Curiously, I haven't yet found a definitive statement that the same definition of "acquisition date" applies to wash sales as to holding periods for long term/short term.
I've been planning on posting a bit on the intricacies of the wash sale rule (tacking holding periods and selling sub-lots) because I'm currently dealing with this with Fidelity and have already had to explain it to them a couple of times. (None of the reps I spoke with had ever seen a lot classified not as "long" or "short", but as "fractured" - their terminology for a single lot, some of whose shares are long term, some short term, due to a wash sale.)
That's going to take me some time to write up in a comprehensible manner, so it might be a couple of days before you see it. For people who really get into the nitty gritty of optimizing gains, its an interesting corner case. Otherwise, you may just react: "why would anyone even think about this?" More to come.
I was figuring calendar days AND trade date, but wanted to check with you AND allow a cushion of a couple of weeks. feh. These are the Blue Meanies we're dealing with boys and girls, and I would rather not take any chances.
In addition, for the others because of the time of year, they use the term 'substantially identical' which when applied to funds and ETFs opens a very large doorway for us weasels. For example, I think it might raise their notice if I sold S&P 500 Index fund and bought another from a different house, but if I sell one muni bond fund and bought a different one from a different house, I should be good.
peace,
rono