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Tax implications of option selling

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Let’s say I bought 1000 shares of TSLA at 100.
The stock goes to 200. My average purchase price is $100

I have a +100% realized gain if I sell these shares and pay taxes on the $100,000 I made.

Now, let’s say I sell 10 DITM puts at $300 and get assigned 1000 shares at $300 I then have 2000 shares with an average price of $200.
Then I sell my 1000 shares on the open market.

How will the taxes be calculated on that. The premium received from the option is all taxable when the contract was assigned or when the shares are sold?

Not clear to me yet.
Anyone knows?

Thanks!
To humans, all shares look alike. To the IRS, they don't... they have "Which tax lot am I" tattooed on their behinds. Which 1000 shares did you sell? If you sold the ones you already held, you made a profit and owe tax. If you sold the ones that you were assigned, you made a loss that you can offset against other profits. You could even sell half of each lot and the profit/loss would balance out. Except that if you held the first 1000 shares for over a year, they would be taxed at the lower rate for long term capital gains, whereas I assume the assigned shares would still be short term.

Your brokerage account has a default setting when you just say "Sell 1000 TSLA". You can change your default on a per-account basis. There are (at least) three possibilities:
1. Last in, first out; you would have sold the assigned shares at a loss.
2. First in, first out; you would have sold the original shares at a profit.
3. something like "minimize tax consequences" which honestly I don't know enough about, not all brokers offer it, and I don't think you can make it the default.

On ETrade when you place an order to sell less than the entire holding, there is a link at the bottom of the order page for "Tax lot selector", which is how you would place an order to sell 500 of each lot. HTH.

As @adiggs pointed out, the cost basis of the assigned shares would actually be less than the exact $300, but I ignore that in the above discussion. There is no taxable event on the assignment until you sell those shares, and then the tax basis takes into account that you made money selling the put but lost money on the shares themselves (assuming you sold them for less than $300).

Edit: note that once the shares are assigned to you, they look mostly like the other shares except for the tattoo. The above discussion is just as true if you had just purchased the second lot of 1000 shares for $300 on the open market.
 
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Not sure if this is okay, but putting it out there in case anyone has a recommendation: I'm looking to reach out to a tax attorney (not accountant) for a question about how my broker handled a tax lot. If anyone out there has a recommendation, please feel free to PM me. Thank you!

Mods: If this is inappropriate, please feel free to nuke this post.
 
Not sure if this is okay, but putting it out there in case anyone has a recommendation: I'm looking to reach out to a tax attorney (not accountant) for a question about how my broker handled a tax lot. If anyone out there has a recommendation, please feel free to PM me. Thank you!

Mods: If this is inappropriate, please feel free to nuke this post.
If it’s OK with you are you able to provide details? I’m not an attorney or know anyone. Would be helpful for others in a similar situation. Perhaps somebody else had a similar situation and can chime in?
 
If it’s OK with you are you able to provide details? I’m not an attorney or know anyone. Would be helpful for others in a similar situation. Perhaps somebody else had a similar situation and can chime in?

Basically, I'm in a dispute with my broker over which shares they assigned for a sale. I get the feeling I'm S.O.L., but I'm curious if there's any case law out there where an individual has successfully sued their broker over allegations of mishandling the tax lot. I expect their hands are tied by regulatory reporting requirements, and ultimately it's my responsibility to double check which lot was assigned, but I am frustrated because their platform did not properly record a default change I requested as to which shares be sold.
 
BPS and wash sale questions:

if you get the -p assigned and you exercise the +p to close out (LIFO), this is not yet a wash sale? I can still deduct the loss?

If exactly 30 days later, I get another -p assigned, does this trigger the wash sale? I can't deduct the loss from the first assignment?

What about the new batch of shares I have to deal with with a sell. Does it have anything to do wash sale consideration?
 
BPS and wash sale questions:

if you get the -p assigned and you exercise the +p to close out (LIFO), this is not yet a wash sale? I can still deduct the loss?

If exactly 30 days later, I get another -p assigned, does this trigger the wash sale? I can't deduct the loss from the first assignment?

What about the new batch of shares I have to deal with with a sell. Does it have anything to do wash sale consideration?
It's pretty fuzzy. Some online sources say the deep in the money -P assign with +P close out is a wash sale since they are the same equity underlying and deltas are likely similar with recent strong SP movement. Sources also say the only option immune is a covered call with stock sale.

It might be good to find a good options CPA but some of those folks seem as shady as anything else in the options biz - promising the moon, ridiculous fees, terrible reviews, etc.
 
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It's pretty fuzzy. Some online sources say the deep in the money -P assign with +P close out is a wash sale since they are the same equity underlying and deltas are likely similar with recent strong SP movement. Sources also say the only option immune is a covered call with stock sale.

It might be good to find a good options CPA but some of those folks seem as shady as anything else in the options biz - promising the moon, ridiculous fees, terrible reviews, etc.

I don't understand why it's our responsibility to read the IRS' mind that they haven't even made up yet.

It's never been explicitly made clear that options are a "substantially identical" wash sale and the IRS has not bothered to provide clarity after all these years. Our brokerages don't consider it a wash sale, so why would we impose the most conservative interpretation on ourselves?

If I do get dinged for an option/share wash sale, I will say thank you for finally providing clarity and now that there is a clear rule I will be happy to follow it. IANAL but I don't expect to be charged with tax evasion for that.
 
I don't understand why it's our responsibility to read the IRS' mind that they haven't even made up yet.

It's never been explicitly made clear that options are a "substantially identical" wash sale and the IRS has not bothered to provide clarity after all these years. Our brokerages don't consider it a wash sale, so why would we impose the most conservative interpretation on ourselves?

If I do get dinged for an option/share wash sale, I will say thank you for finally providing clarity and now that there is a clear rule I will be happy to follow it. IANAL but I don't expect to be charged with tax evasion for that.

At least I will have the argument in front of the IRS that it was a suggestion from my account director of my financial institution
 
Basically, I'm in a dispute with my broker over which shares they assigned for a sale. I get the feeling I'm S.O.L., but I'm curious if there's any case law out there where an individual has successfully sued their broker over allegations of mishandling the tax lot. I expect their hands are tied by regulatory reporting requirements, and ultimately it's my responsibility to double check which lot was assigned, but I am frustrated because their platform did not properly record a default change I requested as to which shares be sold.
Can you please share if you had any findings on this front?
Brokerage I guess allows adjusting the slots for 3 days. Curious if you got any findings on changing the slots after the 3-day window.
I read IRS allows filing a separate form in which you provide the slots to which particular sale can be assigned against.

Also, if you have any Tax attorney, or Tax accountant who is good with options (a lot options sold, bought back), please DM me the information.
 
Can you please share if you had any findings on this front?
Brokerage I guess allows adjusting the slots for 3 days. Curious if you got any findings on changing the slots after the 3-day window.
I read IRS allows filing a separate form in which you provide the slots to which particular sale can be assigned against.

Also, if you have any Tax attorney, or Tax accountant who is good with options (a lot options sold, bought back), please DM me the information.

I didn't have any luck, unfortunately, and ended up just selling the misallocated shares to recognize a loss.
 
I didn't have any luck, unfortunately, and ended up just selling the misallocated shares to recognize a loss.
FWIW, you can file separate information in dispute with your consolidated 1099... but you will most likely get yourself audited if you aren't having a CPA file the taxes. If a CPA is doing it then maybe it is a 25% chance thing.

I used to have a few complicated things with my taxes which left the 1099 unreconcilable. In retrospect the 1099 was likely more correct than what I reported, but I couldn't figure out the broker's error at the time.