OVERVIEW
Washems! is a standalone program designed to help you determine those stock transactions subject to the IRS’ wash sale and merger arbitrage rules. It processes every type of transaction (longs, shorts, calls and puts).
There is no maximum on the number of securities that can be processed in a single pass although the program does limit you to 2000 transactions per security.
Before you can run Washems!, you must prepare your input file in a specific format. This file, containing 1 record for each stock transaction you want the program to analyze, is created in Excel and contains the following 11 columns:
(1) the security name; (2) the merger date, if applicable; (3) “call” or “put” if its an option, blank for a normal stock transaction; (4) the option’s expiration date, if applicable; (5) the option’s strike price, if applicable; (6) the open date; (7) the close date if the lot has been sold; (8) the number of shares or options; (9) the lot’s cost basis; (10) the proceeds from the sale of the lot, if applicable; and, (11) the net gain or loss from the sale, if applicable (short term & long term gains must be combined into 1 column).
Once this file is prepared in Excel, you must save it as a ‘csv’ or comma delimited file for Washems!!. You do this by clicking on the ‘File’ option in Excel’s toolbar and then selecting ‘Save As’. Once the ‘Save As’ window opens, scroll down the file types until you see ‘Comma Delimited’. Choose this type and key in a name for your file. You may use the original worksheet name since Excel appends a different suffix to the name indicating the file’s type. Your Excel work file, for example will have the name ‘whatever.xls’ and your saved csv file will be called ‘whatever.csv’. Remember this name since you will have to tell it to Washems!.
The Excel file must be in the prescribed format and edited so that it contains no imbedded double quotes, single quotes, commas or decimals. Any field having no value should be left blank. For example, if the transaction is for stock (not an option), then fields 3, 4 and 5 will all be blank. The cost, proceeds and gain/loss must all be expressed as whole dollars. Additionally, negative numbers should be shown with a ‘-‘ (minus) sign, not contained within parentheses and, dates must be in the format mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy. Be very sure that you use the exact same name for all transactions pertaining to a specific stock. The program won’t know that “ABC, Inc.” is the same as “ABC Inc.”, “ABC” or “ABC Incorp.”. The following examples might help illustrate these requirements: