Common issues
If something does not look right, the cause is usually one of a handful of small things. Here is how to fix the most common ones.
The wrong broker is selected
capi.tax reads each broker's export in its own format. If you picked Interactive Brokers but uploaded a Tastytrade file (or the other way round), the file will not be read correctly and you may see a message about missing columns. Check that the selected broker matches the file you exported, then upload again.
No transactions found for the year
If your file loads but the chosen year is empty, the export probably does not contain any trades from that year. Confirm which years are actually in the file and select one of those. When exporting from your broker, set the date range to cover the full tax year you want to prepare.
The file is a PDF or ZIP, not a CSV
capi.tax needs a CSV file. A PDF statement cannot be read — re-export your transaction history and choose the CSV (or transaction-data) option instead. If you downloaded a ZIP archive, unpack it first and upload the CSV file inside.
Sales without a matching purchase
German tax uses the FIFO method, so every sale needs the purchase it came from. This bites most often when a position was opened in a year earlier than your file — for example options bought in 2024 that expired in 2025, or shares carried over from a different broker. The closing trade then has no purchase to match and is flagged as unmatched.
You can see these under Open positions without a tax event in the Audit trail tab. While they stay unmatched they are left out of your totals, so the affected gains or losses are not counted. To resolve it, either re-export a wider date range that reaches back to when the position was opened — so the purchase and the sale sit in the same file — or open the Adjustments tab and declare the missing opening lot yourself. Once matched, the trade flows back into your totals.
Encoding or text problems
If parts of the file look garbled, or you see a message about invalid text encoding, the file was likely saved in an unusual format. Open it and save it again as UTF-8, or re-export it directly from your broker without editing it in a spreadsheet first.
capi.tax prepares your data; it is not tax advice. Please review the figures and ask a tax advisor (Steuerberater) about your personal situation.