Form 6781 - Section 1256 Contracts and Straddles - Futures Contracts
1

For futures contracts, the entry of Forms 1099-B Proceeds From Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions information is on Form 6781 Gains and Losses From Section 1256 Contracts and Straddles. You need to complete Part I for futures contracts.

To enter information for Form 6781 in your TaxAct® return:

  1. From within your TaxAct return (Online or Desktop), click Federal. On smaller devices, click in the upper left-hand corner, then click Federal.
  2. Click Investment Income in the Federal Quick Q&A Topics menu to expand, click Gain or loss on the sale of investments to expand, then click Futures or foreign currency contract reporting (Form 6781).
  3. Continue with the interview process to enter all of the appropriate information.

Based on the information entered, the appropriate calculations will be done on Form 6781 so that 40% of the gain or loss is reported as short-term on Line 8 and 60% of the gain or loss is reported as long-term on Line 9 of the form.

Short-term gains and losses are then transferred by the program to Line 4 of Schedule D (Form 1040) Capital Gains and Losses, and long-term gains and losses to Line 11.

This type of transaction will not be imported via electronic import or CSV file import. The information must be manually entered by the user.

Note that any link in the information above is updated each year automatically and will take you to the most recent version of the document at the time it is accessed.