Originally Posted by
Bttc
Again, before people start doing hundreds of $50 buys, keep in mind you have to have a separate line item on your tax return for each and every individual transaction.
I think the regulations may have been changed to get rid of most of that.
For brevity, I am following the IRS's convention of referring to a tax payer as "you" in the following.
I have, so far, only filed an extension for last year, and I am not a tax professional or otherwise qualified to offer reliable tax advice, but my layman's understanding is that, for stock sold that was
purchased in 2013 and later, brokers are required to report the details directly to the IRS on form 1099-B, and you just have to report totals in (Form 1040) Schedule D lines 1a and 8a for the hopefully common case where you agree with the broker's form 1099-B. Even if you want to use form 8949 to report differences from the 1099-B, you can still combine multiple purchases of the same stock by writing "VARIOUS" in column B (date acquired) in form 8949.
Partly in support of the preceeding, here is some advice from the IRS that I think indicates that you do not have to fill out form 8949 if you're not challenging any information that was already submitted by your broker with form 1099-B, from
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/...link1000265824 (columns f and g mentioned in the quotation are for the tax payer to make adjustment's to the broker's 1099-B):
Exception 2. You must file Schedule D (Form 1040), but generally do not have to file Form 8949, if Exception 1 does not apply and your only capital gains and losses are:
[...]
Gains and losses from transactions for which you received a Form 1099-B (or substitute statement) that shows the basis was reported to the IRS and for which you do not need to make any adjustments in column (g) of Form 8949 or enter any codes in column (f) of Form 8949.