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How to enter in schedule D stocks that I have not sold at the end of the tax year?

Would it be ok to enter them into the this year's tax report and omit them from last year's? Would IRS be OK with a printout of my broker's P/L statement rather than the official Schedule D or D1 form? I know I could make an excel file look like Schedule D1 but it would be less work this way and I think it is actually better formatted than their Schedule D.

Public Comments

1. Generally speaking, you do NOT enter stocks that you have not sold on Schedule D or D1. There are two exceptions. One of these was only available for a single tax year, which was over 5 years ago. The other is for "traders" who are required to "mark to market" and seek to profit from daily up and down movement in stock prices, not from long term trends or from dividends. If you are a normal investor who seeks to profit from capital appreciation or dividends, then you report ONLY what you sold (on Schedule D or D-1) and dividends received, paid, or reinvested (on Schedule B).
2. Schedule D is the form used to report profit or loss from the sale of stocks. If you haven't sold them, you have neither profit nor loss to report. You don't need to account for them on the Schedule D.
3. If you have not sold them, you cannot put them on your taxes. You can only claim REALIZED gains and losses, NOT unrealized.
4. You only report stock sales, not stocks that you still hold, and they must be reported in the year they are sold. They also want the info on their form, not in somebody else's format. If you attach a statement, it has to be in their format.
5. You should not list stocks that you have not yet sold on Schedule D unless you are a trafer. You should only report the sales during the year. Since your main concern is to save time, try this: your broker should be able to provide you with a "recognized gains and losses" schedule that summarizes short term and long term gains and losses for the year. If the schedule is correct and includes accurate basis information, simply list the totals on Schedule D (Sales Price, Basis, and Gain/Loss) for short term and long term with description "see attached" and attach a copy of the schedule to the return. I do this for many clients who have a large number transactions.