TRADERS
SERVICES: TAX PREPARATION & PLANNING

Preparation and planning of federal and state income tax returns for traders (retail, proprietary, hedge funds, and management companies [both individuals and entities]) is our core business.

Tax Planning: We recommend tax planning throughout 2009 — on quarterly estimated income taxes due, Section 475 MTM and Section 988 forex opt-out elections, entities, retirement plans, and other tax savings strategies. Read our latest year-end tax planning articles for special steps to take in Q4 2009. Green’s articles were also edited for Active Trader magazine (December 2009 issue), Traders Expo (November 2009 in Las Vegas), and Fidelity Active Trader newsletter (December 2009).

Software: If you are a securities trader, we highly recommend our TradeLog MTM® for GreenTraderTax software (formerly GTT TradeLog). Click here to learn more and purchase the program; you will also find information regarding our trade accounting services.

Guides: For a thorough but quick overview of our latest tax strategies and tax laws for traders (especially business traders), we highly recommend Green's 2009 Trader Tax Guide (2010 version coming soon). Free Upgrade: All purchases of our GreenTrader Tax Return Examples Guides (including Gold Package) after Oct. 15, 2009 come with a free upgrade to our 2010 guides.

Entities: There’s still time to set up an entity in Q4 2009 and save plenty of tax money this year and next. You can still elect Section 475 MTM in the entity for the rest of 2009, but it's too late to elect MTM individually (the deadline was April 15). You can pay yourself a fee or salary to create earned income, which unlocks a tax-advantaged retirement-plan contribution and a deduction for health insurance premiums. Setting up a new trading entity provides the best of both worlds: It allows capital gains treatment to soak up capital-loss carryovers and year-to-date capital losses, or Section 475 MTM ordinary loss treatment. To further massage capital gains loss treatment vs. ordinary loss treatment, you can start over with an entity and MTM election for 2010. A consultation with Robert A. Green CPA is an excellent starting point to see if an entity is right for you. You may later decide to upgrade to our entity-formation service. Click here to learn more about entity tax strategies for traders.

* An entity is helpful in managing your way out of a capital-loss carryover.
* The entity can also provide an opportunity for a retirement-plan deduction and/or health-insurance premium AGI 100% deduction.
* Entities are needed now more than before to defend trader tax status because the IRS is turning up the heat on trader tax status (see our blog article on this topic).

Retirement Plans: We recently rolled out our new GreenTrader self-directed retirement planning services. Our plans are customized for GreenTrader tax benefit strategies. They offer special features such as plan loans and the ability to trade forex and futures at many leading brokers and invest in hedge funds. Learn more here.

Prior Years: The 2008 income tax filing deadline was Oct. 15, 2009. We are happy to help you with late returns, NOL carryback returns, and amended returns. The IRS will eventually catch up with you, mostly due to 1099 filings (and the IRS’s matching program). If you are flagged in the IRS’s system, it will then most likely send you a jeopardy (estimate) assessment, which may include a large amount of taxes, penalties, and interest due. Act on your own earlier to improve your chances when seeking abatement of penalties.

RETAINERS:

GTT Trader Tax Return Preparation Service – Retainer & Minimum Price * Investors sign up for a lower retainer here. **Hedge funds sign up for a higher retainer here. ***Non-traders sign up here. Kindly follow the instructions for entering your client contact information and credit card number (take note of our strict privacy policy). After your credit card payment is submitted, you will receive a download and e-mail containing your user name and password. You will need this to enter our preparation login area. $750

Second retainer for preparation of an entity or other return Note if you are signing up for an individual and entity return, kindly purchase both above retainers ($750 + $500 = $1,250). $500

Our highly experienced CPAs will help you determine whether to use "trader tax status" or "investor tax status." This key decision unlocks all the trader tax benefits. You may be a "close call" for trader tax status and you need our judgment and knowledge to make this vital call. If you fall short of trader tax status, we offer you lower fees in our GTT Investor Tax Preparation Service. Click here to learn more.

Either way, with or without trader tax status, or using your own trade accounting solutions, we will do the very best for you with deductions and other proprietary GTT tax strategies. Most importantly, when we prepare your tax return, you can count on us not raising red flags with the IRS, thus reducing your chance of an IRS exam. Plus, if you do get audited or the IRS asks questions, we will defend you until the end. We have the best record in the country on winning trader exams and we continue to help define trader tax law. Click here to learn more about our IRS and/or state tax exam representation service.

Opt for our full service and have us do your annual tax return preparation and planning, form a trading entity, and set up a tax-beneficial retirement plan. Give us one year to please you with our excellent tax savings results and fair fees and you will use us for a lifetime – that's just what we want!

Learn more about our tax preparation service:
Deliverables: What you can expect to receive with our service.
GTT advantage: Why you should select GTT as your trader tax preparer.
Virtual process: Efficiency, effectiveness, documentation, convenience, and personal touch.
IRS exams: How we'll represent you in front of the IRS.
Prior year returns (we review them to see if you benefit from an amended return).
Costs: Retainer, fees & quotes.
e-filing.
Proprietary Traders.
Late Returns.
Entity Tax Returns.
Last-minute Filers.

If you have any questions about our trader tax preparation services, please contact us at info@greencompany.com or call us.

We are e-filing many federal and state tax returns again this year. We simply push a button in our software and your return is filed. E-filing is easier and less expensive than delivering paper returns, and your tax return and refunds are processed faster.

Important note about e-filing trader returns: See our above paragraph about why it's a good time to switch to GTT TradeLog for tax return filings. Recent IRS statements insist that taxpayer's include line-by-line reporting of trades on Schedule D-1 with e-filed returns. Attachments, in lieu of Schedule D-1 are allowed by the IRS for paper-filed returns only (not e-filed returns). GTT TradeLog is an excellent solution for both e-filing and paper-filed returns.

Proprietary Traders: We also recommend that proprietary traders sign up for our tax preparation services. We don't have to spend time on trade accounting since your prop firm handles that, so our fees are less than for retail traders. We will find lots of ways for you to deduct non-reimbursed business expenses, including home-office expenses, and that will save you thousands of dollars more. We will also make sure you can deduct any lost deposits with the firm. The proprietary trading industry is changing all the time and faces regulatory risks, exams and enforcement actions. We will do our best to keep you out of harm's way. Learn more in our proprietary trading tax section and then return here to sign up for our tax preparation service. We also prepare tax returns for proprietary trading firms.

Late Returns:
October 15th was the extended due date for filing prior year individual tax returns . Trader tax matters are highly complex and each year many traders miss that tax deadline. Some traders qualify for hurricane or other tax-relief, and they have extended tax deadlines. Other traders who have not yet filed don't owe taxes and they can safely file late without tax consequences. If you don't file there will be serious consequences. Don't wait for the IRS to contact you first. Remember, the IRS sees your Form 1099s and they can show millions in proceeds. The IRS has no way of knowing if you lost or made a fortune and owe taxes.

Although it is past Oct. 15 (the extension due date), we still welcome you to sign up for our tax return preparation services. We are also still preparing and fixing (i.e., amending) prior year tax returns for many clients. Click here to see how we can help.

Entity Tax Returns: To best take advantage of GTT's entity tax strategies, it’s wise to engage GTT for our tax preparation service. Entity formation and tax preparation go hand-in-hand. Several of our tax reporting strategies for entities are complex and highly nuanced; if you try them on your own, or with another accountant, and handle them improperly, it may cause IRS questions or an exam (audit). Although an entity gives you the predisposition under the law to have a business activity, you still need to have a winning case for trader tax status for beneficial business treatment. We assess this in our preparation service.

Whether you have an LLC, a husband-wife partnership, corporation or another type of entity, GTT special tax reporting strategies are very important.

A husband-wife “defacto” general partnership has several tax reporting challenges. Form 1099s must be reported on your individual return, transferred to your partnership tax return, and then “passed through” and reported on your individual return. You need special matching footnotes on the individual and separately filed partnership returns to explain this treatment.

There are special tax reporting considerations for other types of entity returns as well. If you used another firm to form an entity and now realize it was a mistake, we still may be able to help. For example, maybe you formed a C-Corporation in a non-tax state. We may be able to file a late S-Corporation election to convert it to a pass-through entity and also register it to do business in your home state. This will keep you out of trouble and also improve your tax results.

Learn more about our entity formation and tax strategies here.

Last-minute Filers: See Robert Green's March article in Active Trader, "Before & After," on what to do before April 15 (extensions and mark-to-market (MTM) elections) and after (fine tuning your returns). Click here to read a reprint of the article.

Don't rush to file by April 15 without first getting all the values out of our guides, software, and services. We will save you lots of money and keep you out of trouble with the IRS. You can still sign up for a consultation with Robert Green, CPA, before April 15; he will help you with your extensions, trader tax status determination, and MTM elections.