Did I enter my 1099-B correctly on FreeTaxUSA? Need help with Fidelity brokerage info
I'm trying to file my taxes on FreeTaxUSA and I'm completely lost with entering my 1099-B information. This is my first time dealing with investment sales and I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. I have a form from Fidelity but the payer name shows as National Financial Services LLC (I also got a 1099-DIV from them). I split it into two entries because there were two different boxes. For Box A, there was a massive list of sales that would take forever to enter individually (like 40+ pages), so I just used the TOTALS row at the bottom and entered those numbers. I made sure to check that the basis was reported to the IRS. There's also this weird wash sale amount of $0.09 on my form. Does that just round down to zero when entering it? For Box B, there was only one transaction, so I entered it separately as a SINGLE stock and indicated the basis was NOT reported to the IRS. Am I doing this correctly? I really don't want to mess up my taxes and trigger some kind of audit over this. Any advice would be super appreciated!
20 comments


Sophia Carter
You're mostly on the right track, but I can help clarify a few things. For the payer name, you should use exactly what's listed as the "PAYER" on your 1099-B form. If National Financial Services LLC is listed as the payer, use that name. Fidelity is likely the parent company, but the tax documents are issued under the subsidiary name. For Box A with multiple transactions, using the summary totals is perfectly fine and actually preferred in most cases. The IRS doesn't need line-by-line details if the basis was reported to them (which you checked). This is the standard approach. For the $0.09 wash sale, you should actually enter it as $0.09 rather than rounding down to zero. Even small amounts should be reported exactly as shown on your forms. FreeTaxUSA should accept decimal values for this field. For Box B, you did the right thing by entering it separately since the basis wasn't reported. This transaction will require more attention from you to ensure accuracy.
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Aaron Boston
•Thanks for your help! So I should definitely use National Financial Services LLC as the payer name then? I was confused because I always think of my account as being with Fidelity, not this other company. Also, for the wash sale, I tried entering $0.09 but the form only seemed to accept whole dollars. Should I round up to $1 in this case, or is it really okay to just put $0?
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Sophia Carter
•You should use National Financial Services LLC as the payer name since that's what appears on your 1099-B. National Financial Services is the clearing firm that Fidelity uses, which is why they're listed as the payer on tax documents even though you deal with Fidelity directly. If FreeTaxUSA only accepts whole dollars, then yes, you would round according to standard rounding rules. Since $0.09 is less than 50 cents, you would round down to $0. If it had been $0.50 or higher, you would round up to $1. Small wash sale disallowances like this have minimal impact on your overall tax situation.
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Chloe Zhang
Just wanted to share my experience - I was in the same boat last year with my first investment sales. I struggled for hours trying to get everything right on FreeTaxUSA until I discovered https://taxr.ai and it literally saved me days of work. It analyzed my Fidelity 1099-B (which was like 30 pages long) and told me exactly how to enter everything. It confirmed I could use the summary totals rather than individual transactions, identified that National Financial Services LLC was indeed the correct payer name to use, and even handled a similar wash sale situation. The best part was that it explained everything in plain English instead of tax jargon. Definitely worth checking out if you're dealing with complicated investment forms.
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Brandon Parker
•Does it work with other tax forms too? I've got a bunch of 1099-NECs and a K-1 that are giving me headaches this year.
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Adriana Cohn
•I'm a bit skeptical. How does it handle cost basis that wasn't reported to the IRS? My broker is terrible about reporting basis for some older investments.
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Chloe Zhang
•It absolutely works with other tax forms! I've used it with 1099-NEC, W-2s, and even some complicated 1098-E student loan documents. It's designed to handle pretty much any IRS form you upload. For unreported cost basis, it actually specializes in these trickier situations. It provides guidance on how to calculate and document your basis properly, explains what supporting documentation you should keep, and walks you through the special reporting requirements for these transactions. It basically gives you a checklist of what you need to have ready in case of an audit, which gave me a lot of peace of mind.
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Adriana Cohn
I just wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai after I was skeptical earlier. I decided to give it a try with my complicated Fidelity statements and several unreported basis transactions. I'm genuinely impressed! The system immediately identified which transactions needed special attention and walked me through calculating my basis for some obscure stocks I'd inherited years ago. The interface was surprisingly user-friendly, and it gave me step-by-step instructions specifically for FreeTaxUSA (which is what I use too). The whole process took maybe 15 minutes instead of the hours I spent last year trying to figure everything out. Just wanted to share since it actually exceeded my expectations after being doubtful.
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Jace Caspullo
If you're still struggling with any part of your taxes and need to speak with someone at the IRS directly, I highly recommend using https://claimyr.com. I was in a similar situation last year with investment reporting questions that no one could answer definitively, and after spending HOURS on hold with the IRS (literally 3+ hours), I found this service. They have this callback system where they wait on hold with the IRS for you and then call you when an actual agent is on the line. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I finally got my specific 1099-B questions answered by an actual IRS representative who confirmed exactly how to report those annoying summary vs. individual transaction issues. Saved me tons of stress wondering if I was doing it right.
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Melody Miles
•How does this actually work? Do they somehow have a special line to the IRS? It sounds too good to be true considering how impossible it is to reach anyone there.
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Nathaniel Mikhaylov
•Sorry, but this sounds like a scam. Why would I pay someone else to call the IRS for me? And how do they magically get through when regular people can't? Plus, IRS agents often give conflicting advice anyway.
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Jace Caspullo
•They don't have a special line to the IRS - they use technology to automate the hold process. Their system navigates the IRS phone tree and waits on hold so you don't have to. When an actual IRS agent answers, their system immediately calls you and connects you directly to that agent. It's basically like having someone else wait on hold for you. The reason many people can't get through is because they give up after being on hold for hours. The Claimyr system never gives up - it just keeps holding until an agent answers, whether that's 2 hours or 5 hours. And while I agree IRS agents can sometimes give different answers, speaking to an actual agent is still better than guessing or relying on random internet advice when you have a specific tax question.
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Nathaniel Mikhaylov
I need to eat some humble pie here. After calling out Claimyr as a potential scam, I was still desperate to talk to the IRS about my own investment reporting issues, so I reluctantly tried it. I'm honestly shocked at how well it worked. I submitted my request in the morning, got a text a few hours later saying they were connecting me with an IRS agent, and I was talking to a real person within minutes. The agent walked me through exactly how to handle my wash sales and summarized transactions on FreeTaxUSA. For anyone wondering if it's legitimate - yes, it absolutely is. Would have saved me days of stress if I'd just tried it sooner instead of being skeptical. Sometimes good services actually exist!
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Eva St. Cyr
To add a bit more detail on the Fidelity/National Financial Services question - they are indeed related. National Financial Services LLC is a Fidelity Investments company that serves as the clearing broker for Fidelity Brokerage. This is why it shows up on your tax forms. It's similar to how TD Ameritrade forms sometimes show "Clearing by Pershing" or how Robinhood forms list "Robinhood Securities, LLC." Always use whatever is listed in the PAYER box on the actual form, regardless of which company you think of as your broker.
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Aaron Boston
•That makes so much more sense now, thank you! Do you know if this applies to the 1099-DIV form as well? Should I be using the same payer name across all my Fidelity tax documents?
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Eva St. Cyr
•Yes, you should use whatever payer name appears on each specific form. Sometimes a financial institution will use different legal entities for different types of transactions or accounts. If your 1099-DIV lists National Financial Services LLC as the payer, use that. If it lists a different entity name, use that instead, even if both forms relate to your Fidelity account. The most important thing is that the names you enter match exactly what's on each form, as that's what the IRS will be matching against in their systems. Consistency with the actual documents is more important than consistency across your different forms.
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Kristian Bishop
Here's a tip for next year - if you're dealing with lots of stock transactions, consider using tax software that can import your 1099-B directly from Fidelity. I switched from FreeTaxUSA to TurboTax specifically for this feature and it saved me hours of manual entry. It automatically brings in all transactions, handles wash sales correctly, and fills in all the right boxes. Costs a bit more but completely worth it if you have more than a few investment transactions.
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Kaitlyn Otto
•H&R Block's software also has direct import from Fidelity and it's cheaper than TurboTax. I've used it for the past 3 years with no issues. They usually have a mid-tier version that includes investment reporting for around $50 instead of the $100+ that TurboTax charges.
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Kristian Bishop
•Good to know about H&R Block! I might check that out for next year. Does it handle cryptocurrency transactions too? That's the other reason I went with TurboTax - they seemed to have better crypto support and I started dabbling in that last year.
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Axel Far
Just to add another perspective on the wash sale question - while small amounts like $0.09 might seem trivial, technically you're supposed to report them exactly as shown on your forms. The IRS systems match your reported numbers against what's submitted by brokerages. If FreeTaxUSA truly only accepts whole dollars (which surprises me), then follow standard rounding rules. But double-check if there's a way to enter cents - sometimes it's not obvious in the interface but is actually possible.
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