200 Stock Sales is too much!

[JG EA]

78 pages! I think I would also. My limit this year so far has been approx 10 pages, but they are EJones and so only about 7 - 10 on a page.

[Possi]

Clear items

I have to say that most of my statements have been very clear. I think they are getting better.

Yes, 78 pages I recieved in an email and had to print.

My client bought me a print cartridge, you might say!

It's all good. I still love this gig. Even when I want to jump off the roof, or post a FB message that was only meant for family.

[Lion]

Import

I think the most (that I bothered to count) was 4400 trades. But, my clients usually have 100 double-side pages with small print. I have them make their brokers email me a spreadsheet of their gain/loss statements, then I simply import into their return. Click the button, and it's done! No typos or transposed digits. Nothing to mail. Client gets a fat copy of their return to justify my price. (My copy is a .pdf on my hard drive, so I don't care how big it is.)

If you are mailing, it needs to be the gain/loss statements. It's not usually the 1099-B that has the basis reported to the client, but a supplemental report. Many brokers mail the gain/loss statements with their year-end reports and not necessarily in the same envelope as the consolidated Forms 1099.

If your client allows you to access their account online, you may be able to download their spreadsheet yourself.

Choose the easiest method for you. Charge a lot. Blame it on the IRS adding three new forms (with continuation pages if you're importing 100s of trades instead of summarizing totals) to Schedule D. You didn't raise your prices, but the IRS added forms to your client's return.

[MRPLOW]

Fee's

Let's try and get an idea of what people are charging for this type of work...
Note, I haven't done any returns with over 100 trades.


Entering in all trades
Sch D: $30
Form 8949: $3 - $5 per trade


If I can enter the summary total from 1099-B
Sch D: $30
Form 8949: $5 per entry
Form 8453: $50 (covers mailing, copying, and time required to look over 1099 -B)
Basically approximately $100 total if I can use summary

[JohnH]

If they can afford to pay the round-trip commissions to the broker, they can afford to pay you for your services.

[Lion]

Amen, John. Have you looked at some of those fees on your clients' managed accounts? It's not unusual for my clients to pay $4-10,000 per year to their brokerage, and they complain when I charge $1,000 or more for their entire return! I don't feel sorry for them.

I'm making sure I'm charging more than last year to account for the extra forms, my extra time preparing the forms, coding before importing, mailing if necessary, extra proofreading, etc., and especially for the coursework I took and reading I've done to learn about this new reporting requirement. It's not just what I do, it's what I know.

[MRPLOW]

JonhH or Lion care to share how much you are charging for the preparation of Schedule D, Form 8949, and Form 8453?

[JohnH]

I don't charge by the form or by the line item. I charge by the hour for stuff like this, and they are free to bite off as many hours as they and their broker wish. Same rule for rentals, Schedule C, 2106, and talking about the weather, the government, or their grandkids.

[Lion]

Haven't completed my bigger Schedule Ds yet, so my pricing is still in a state of flux. This year, those forms have a large hourly component. So far, I've started with $50 for D and $20 for each LT and $20 for each ST for each 8949. Haven't had any I have to mail with 8453, but I'm sure I'd ask at least $50 for that and probably put the client on extension (especially since my scanner/copier started misbehaving a couple of days ago). I add an extra Research charge if I have to help out with cost basis.

Completed returns have had only a few trades on a page. As I prepare the "full page" 8949s, I expect to raise the above prices considerably, maybe moving to a per-item charge or even straight hourly for those schedules. No matter what pricing method, I'm already comparing prices to last year for each client to make sure each invester is paying a bit more toward my education.

[Peachie]

Will this help?

This comes from this weeks NATP, you make the call:

Question: Your client Stan dropped off his information to process his 2011 tax return. Stan is an avid stock trader in his spare time. His Form 1099-B statements report hundreds of transactions he made throughout the year. In past years, the preparer avoided the arduous process of entering each transaction separately by entering only the totals on Schedule D then sending the client’s broker statements to the IRS with Form 8453. This saved hours of data entry. In light of the new Form 8949 filing requirements, will preparers still be able to save time by attaching statements to Form 8453?

Answer: Yes, BUT the new requirements for reporting short-term and long-term transactions on separate Form 8949s by type A, B or C are still required. Therefore, when the totals on broker statements include both type A and type B transactions, the preparer will need to manually subtotal the transactions between the two types and report each on separate Forms 8949. The instructions to Schedule D state to enter the combined totals from all the attached statements on Form 8949 with the appropriate box checked. For example, check box A on Form 8949 and report on Line 3 all long-term gains and losses from transactions your broker reported on Form 1099-B showing that the basis of the property sold was reported to the IRS. If client has statements from more than one broker, report the totals from each broker on a separate line.

[Lion]

Two different clients had brokers send me spreadsheets today (about 100 pages each). Both are ones that I had last year, with spreadsheets in much better shape last year. Neither has the coding for Covered, which means I'll have to refer to the .pdf Form 1099-B to find those. Neither has gross proceeds that equal the proceeds on the Form 1099-B. One is really a web page and not a spreadsheet, with different sized cells scattered throughout (no way to delete just the blank lines, as an entire line is not blank). Think I'll go to hourly billing on these. Maybe summary totals. I see extensions for the rest of my investors.

[taxea]

I have a small base charge for the form and then charge per entry for depreciable items and stock sales.

[Possi]

Dang...

I've been giving them away.... almost... Never charged $50 for an 8453.

I could have cleaned house!

[ttbtaxes]

Big Problem

I may have a big problem. A client has 59 pages of short-term sales from a brokerage company. The 1099-B identifies which sales are covered vs. non-covered but it does NOT break them out into separate schedules. I called the broker and he said they can not produce a printed report that breaks them out. I'm trying to see if it will be possible to export and import. Even then I will have to go through every transaction and identify whether it is covered or not covered.

Any thoughts about how to deal with this if it is not possible to export/import?

How would the IRS know the totals for the two categories if there is no totals on the 1099-B?

[Possi]

an elephant

I may have a big problem. A client has 59 pages of short-term sales from a brokerage company. The 1099-B identifies which sales are covered vs. non-covered but it does NOT break them out into separate schedules. I called the broker and he said they can not produce a printed report that breaks them out. I'm trying to see if it will be possible to export and import. Even then I will have to go through every transaction and identify whether it is covered or not covered.

Any thoughts about how to deal with this if it is not possible to export/import?

How would the IRS know the totals for the two categories if there is no totals on the 1099-B?

I usually eat an elephant one bite at a time.