Daniel S

I would add fees to the list of drawdowns. In the past 2 months I accumulated around 1,100 USD in commissions and fees on tastyworks. That is almost 50% of my profit. Until now I have not been aware on how huge of a drag commissions and fees are.

I asked a friend of mine who is a partner at a tax firm. They have already sent a written inquiry to the ministry of finance asking for clarification. His position is that this rule is unfair and he is not even sure it it will uphold since it violates some basic principles (in his view, I should say). This change has stirred up quite a lot of commotion. For example some brokers are afraid they have to close their German branches. It does not have to be said that due to Covid 19 there is little chance to receive any update on this front. I would not even estimate anything to be done within this year. Ways out of it: 1) Start trading professionally in a separate corporate entity. The problem is that you will end up paying more taxes compared to know as far as I understand it. You pay corporate tax on your earnings and then pay capital gains tax if you pay those earnings out (to yourself) or you pay yourself an income and the money gets taxed with income tax. Both have higher tax loads than the regular capital gains tax you pay now. 2) Create an offshore entity. One of the easiest ways seem to create an LLC, for example in Florida. As long as it is considered tax transparent the earnings will be reported by the owners and they are being taxed. It is key that the German tax authorities consider this entity also as a partnership („Personengesellschaft“) and not as a corporation („Kapitalgesellschaft“). Otherwise you are being taxed twice. 3) Wait and see. Maybe they will change something, maybe it gets sacked by the courts.

Just to make sure: Does this only work with a market data subscription for IB? Did not find anything related. The log says I did not subscribe to the market data package and any data will be delayed. Does it only work during market hours? The file is stuck in "requesting underlying price", but the TwsActiveXLS also does not fetch any data (same message).