Editor: Import your trades from Interactive Brokers, Etrade, TradeKing, and others into TurboTax and Tax Cut!
Does your broker leave you stranded when the tax man comes calling? While a few brokers do offer seamless integration with Tax Preparation Software, most brokers are surprisingly lacking. This includes popular brokers such as Etrade, Interactive Brokers, IZone, OptionsXpress, TradeKing, TradeStation, and others.
Popular tax software (TurboTax & TaxCut), on the other hand, claims to be able to Connect to your broker to import your capital gains transactions. However, what's not clear until you go through the process is that the cost basis for your transactions is not imported. This is because your broker is just providing information from Form 1099, which doesn't contain the cost basis information. This means that you have to manually enter the purchase date and purchase price for all of your transactions.
Fortunately, there is a way around this situation. While most brokers don't offer a direct TXF download, most brokers do a offer a download of your captial gains transactions in one form or another, most often in MS Excel format. Therein lies the solution! With the help of a simple, easy to use macro, your transactions will go from Excel to your tax software in a matter of minutes!
Even if your broker doesn't offer a download in Excel format, getting your data into Excel is usually not too difficult.
