Help! Can't solve EA problem!

[JSLATER]

Bartenders aren't allowed to dispense tax advice directly to the public - their role in the process consists entirely in providing Continuing Ed to hairstylists and mechanics.

Must be an East Coast thing, the rednecks around me depend on their bartender for just about everything. Of course, they think CPE is another government agency acronym.

[DonPriebe]

Some on-line brokers cooperate.

But you raise a good point. An enhancement on-line brokers could easily add is an optional field in which to enter the VSP date (VSP = versus purchase)."

Fidelity allows you to specify what tax lot you sell from and prints out that info on the confirmation. This applies even if you bought the stock in multiple transactions at a different broker(s) and transferred it into Fidelity.

[FEDUKE404]

Wash sale etc

I was also curious about the possible impact of those wash sale rules, unless JSlater's wife never shows a loss in those 350-400 trades/year.

The fact that the 30 days goes backward and forward would seem to create a potential nightmare of record-keeping!

Also, things might get complicated on any qualifying dividends where "time of possession" becomes a factor.

I guess it falls into the "different strokes for different folks" category or investing.

[JSLATER]

Oh, yeah, she has losses and has knowingly "violated" the wash sale rules. But, with the wash sale rules, the loss is added to the basis. I know this has also happened with qualifying dividends, but the brokerage 1099's don't seem to catch this as they do with the wash sales. I would think unless noted on the 1099, the IRS would not even catch it. In reality, unless you hold a large position in a stock and fail to hold it for the 61 days or whatever it is, it should not make any difference to the bottom line.

[FEDUKE404]

Is that a solution?

.... but the brokerage 1099's don't seem to catch this as they do with the wash sales. .... the IRS would not even catch it. .... it should not make any difference to the bottom line.

I'm sorry, but I seem to be missing completely your relevant points here.

IIRC, the original topic of this thread was related to answers on the EA exam. I seriously doubt if "they won't catch it" or "it doesn't matter" would be in the possible correct answers.

FE

[les grans]

"That year ... [I think you said it was 2005] there were 23 question out of 320 that had either multiple answers or everyone got credit. I wonder how many bogus questions there are in the new exam."

Are you saying that these "bogus" questions are just tossed in to see who'll stumble on them, or that whoever devises the exam *can't* solve their own problems?

Either way - or maybe a combination of both - I'm appalled!! Or maybe I just never considered that having questions that don't have a correct answer *might* allow some sharp folks to ... to what? Waste time trying to figure out why the wrong answers are wrong...?

That's not the testing background that I came from... Sheesh, as I write this I get more and more incensed... Someone should be really really embarrassed about this...

And then there might be exam-takers who don't have enough confidence in their own problem-solving (and might *trust* the exam-devisers to provide legit answers) who just guess at an answer, when the right thing to do is... What is the right thing to do when you realize that the *right* answer - you know it's right because you know what you're doing - isn't among the offered answers in a multiple choice test?