Processing notices
After a calculation, a collapsible Notes on processing box may sit above your results. It is not an error and not a warning in any dramatic sense — it is the honest answer to one question: what could capi.tax not read cleanly in your file?
The principle behind it: better a visible notice than a silent assumption inside a tax figure. Nothing is passed over without comment. If something is listed there, you know exactly which rows are affected and how many.
Three severities
Each notice carries one of three meanings, and they have very different consequences:
- Skipped. The row never entered the calculation at all. Your totals are short by that transaction.
- Filed under a fallback category. The row was calculated, but in a substitute tax category. The amount is right; the tax treatment may be wrong — a missing Teilfreistellung, for example.
- Approximated. The row was calculated, but a missing value was filled with a default. The amount itself may be off.
Each notice shows the number of affected rows and a few examples, so you can find them again in your broker export.
What you may see
Currency debt. For one or more foreign currencies your balance went below zero at times. That is either a loan (margin) – taking it out and repaying it is neither a gain nor a loss (BFH VIII R 58/07) – or your files do not reach back to when the currency was bought. Then acquisitions are missing and the currency result is incomplete: upload the statements of earlier years as well.
Interest-bearing foreign-currency balance. Credit interest was paid on a foreign-currency balance. In the tax authorities' view (BMF letters of 19.05.2022 and 14.05.2025, para. 131) the currency result then belongs on Anlage KAP (§ 20 EStG) – with no holding period. The Rhineland-Palatinate tax court has expressed serious doubts (order of 08.10.2025, 4 V 1436/25). Because of the credit interest, capi.tax classifies the balance as interest-bearing for the whole year; you can change the classification in the “Currency gains” section on the KAP Form tab. For the rules that apply, see Currency gains.
Currency gains not calculated for Tastytrade. The Tastytrade export does not show how many euros the deposited dollars cost you. capi.tax therefore does not calculate currency gains on your dollar balance; that calculation stays your job in the tax return – see Currency gains.
Deposit in a foreign currency estimated. For one or more deposits in a foreign currency, the export does not show what the currency cost you in euros. capi.tax uses the Bundesbank rate of the deposit day. If you exchanged the currency elsewhere, check the value.
Balance differs from IBKR. For one or more foreign currencies the calculated year-end balance differs from the one IBKR reports in its forex positions. Usually a balance from an earlier year is missing – upload the previous year's statement as well. Until then the currency result is incomplete.
Corporate actions not applied. Your IBKR Flex export contains corporate actions (splits, spin-offs, mergers). capi.tax applies stock splits with a readable ratio but no other action yet – of those, only bond repayments are calculated (conversion or default of a bond: see Bonds and accrued interest); results for the affected securities may be calculated wrongly. Check these trades yourself — see corporate actions.
Unknown cash-ledger lines skipped. Your IBKR Flex export contains cash-ledger lines of a type capi.tax does not recognize; they were not counted. Check whether any of them are dividends, withholding tax or interest. Fees and VAT on market-data subscriptions are ignored on purpose, because they are not deductible.
Unrecognised rows skipped. Your IBKR export contains rows that are not trades — subtotals, statement headers, broker notes — or a row type capi.tax does not know. Usually harmless; check the examples to confirm no real trade is among them.
Rows without a transaction type skipped. Your Tastytrade export contains rows capi.tax does not map to a tax event. For Money Movement rows such as deposits, withdrawals or transfers this is expected: they are not income. Just check the examples to make sure no dividend, interest or trade is among them.
Unknown transaction type treated as shares. capi.tax could not determine the type and calculated the row as a share trade. Check the tax category — if the transaction belongs to forward transactions or a fund, the result changes.
Split rows skipped. Your Tastytrade export contains split rows whose counterpart is missing or that give no certain ratio — that applies to every reverse split and to ratios such as 3:2. A complete forward split with a whole-number ratio (two rows, e.g. 2:1) is applied instead. The skipped row is left out instead of being counted as a purchase or sale; check later sales of that security yourself — see corporate actions.
Crypto rows skipped. Your Tastytrade export contains crypto trades. Directly held crypto belongs on Anlage SO (§ 23 EStG), not Anlage KAP; capi.tax does not calculate it. Crypto securities and futures are not affected.
Fund treated as shares. The transaction looks like a fund or ETF, but the fund kind is missing. capi.tax therefore treats it as a share. ⚠️ Legally, a fund without a proven fund kind is an other investment fund (0 % Teilfreistellung) and belongs on Anlage KAP-INV. capi.tax currently books it as a share — so it lands on the wrong form (Anlage KAP lines 20/23 instead of KAP-INV) and in the share-loss pot, and a loss is overstated without the Teilfreistellung. Set the fund kind. The link in the notice takes you straight to symbol classification to assign it. Why this has to come from you is explained in Funds & Teilfreistellung. The notice only appears when capi.tax recognises the fund — with Interactive Brokers via ISIN or name. The Tastytrade export does not contain that information; there you assign funds yourself, without a notice.
Futures without a contract multiplier. The multiplier was missing from the export and was set to 1. For futures it is almost never 1 — the affected amounts will then be substantially too low. Check these trades particularly carefully.
Buyback before 2024 booked in the year of payment. Before 2024 you bought back an option you had written in an earlier year. capi.tax books the buyback in the year of payment, as the tax authority does; the amount itself is fully calculated. For these years the Federal Fiscal Court ruled instead that the buyback reduces the premium in the year written (VIII R 27/21). Whether you want to rely on that is best clarified with a tax advisor – see Options & writing options.
Holdings from earlier years not taken over. For the security shown, the quantity computed from your files does not match the broker's holdings (shown as "files / broker") – usually the history starts too late, a year is missing, or a split or transfer is not included. capi.tax then takes over nothing and calculates as without earlier years. Upload the missing years or add the opening yourself – see Upload earlier years. LYNX or CapTrader account with a new account number since 2021: see LYNX.
History cannot be checked. Your files contain purchases from earlier years, but capi.tax cannot check that the history is complete: for IBKR the "Open Positions" section is missing, for Tastytrade the confirmation that your files go back to account opening. Nothing was taken over.
Year in several files. A year appears in more than one file. capi.tax reads each year from one file only – the one with more rows – so nothing counts twice. Check that it is the complete one.
Year missing. A year is missing between your earliest file and the tax year. Without a gap-free history capi.tax takes over no holdings from earlier years.
Negative interest entry not unambiguous. A negative entry in the interest section of your IBKR statement is recognisable neither as debit interest nor as accrued interest paid — for example the correction of an interest credit or negative interest on a balance. capi.tax does not deduct it, like debit interest (§ 20 Abs. 9 EStG). Look up the entry in your statement: if it is negative interest or a custody charge, that is correct. If it reverses an excess interest credit, or is accrued interest paid on a bond purchase, the amount reduces your interest – then deduct it from line 19 yourself. See Interest.
Unusual German tax deducted. German tax was withheld on the dividend of a German share, but not the usual 26.375 % (25 % Kapitalertragsteuer plus solidarity surcharge). capi.tax has already netted reversals and rebookings; typical causes are a missing solidarity surcharge, church tax withheld on top, or a tax booking in a different year from the dividend. Whether that settles the tax cannot be said from this. capi.tax therefore counts dividend and tax on no line and shows them on the Anlage KAP tab in the section Dividends of German shares – with the amount actually withheld. Compare dividend and tax with your statement and clarify with a tax advisor whether and where to enter them. See Dividends of German shares.
December interest in next year's statement. IBKR credits December's interest only in early January; for tax purposes it still belongs to the tax year (§ 11 Abs. 1 S. 2 EStG). Your files do not reach 10 January of the following year, so it is missing. Also upload a statement of the following year that runs at least to 10 January – capi.tax takes only the December interest from it. See Interest.
Short sale of a bond skipped. You sold a bond short at IBKR (sale to open, purchase to close). You owe the lender coupons and accrued interest, which the export does not link to the position, so capi.tax leaves both trades out. Determine the gain or loss yourself and add it to capi.tax's figures: it belongs in line 19, a loss also in line 22. See Bonds and accrued interest.
Bond corporate action not assigned. A corporate action on a bond – usually the repayment at maturity – could not be assigned to a bond. The bond therefore stays open, with no gain or loss. For a repayment in the activity statement (CSV), the Financial Instrument Information section (German: Finanzinstrument-Informationen) is usually missing: generate the statement again with all sections. If the notice stays, upload a Flex Query – it names the bond directly. For a conversion into shares or a default, determine the result yourself. See Bonds and accrued interest.
Accrued interest not assigned to a sale. An accrued-interest entry received on a bond sale could not be assigned to one sale unambiguously – for example because you sold the same bond twice on the same day. capi.tax counts it as interest. Line 19 and the tax are right; only for a bond sold at a loss does line 22 show the loss before the accrued interest. Then deduct the accrued interest from the line 22 amount yourself. See Bonds and accrued interest.
Issuer's country derived. For a bond, the issuer's country is not in your file. capi.tax derived it from the ISIN: if it starts with DE, the issuer counts as German (line 18), otherwise as foreign (line 19). The ISIN does not reliably show the seat – a German issuer can have an XS ISIN. Check the issuer and move the amount between line 18 and 19 if needed; the tax does not change. A Flex Query carries the issuer's country.
Your own opening position used. You added an opening position for this security yourself. It wins; the purchase from the earlier-year file is not used as well, so nothing counts twice.
What to do about it
- Expand the box and read it. It is collapsed, but not hidden.
- Look up the affected rows in your broker export. The examples give you the date and description.
- Supply what capi.tax asks for. Fund kinds and wrong categories are corrected in the Adjustments tab; the figures recalculate immediately.
- Carry the rest knowingly. For skipped items capi.tax cannot compute — crypto, for instance — the transaction remains your own to handle in the return.
No notices — what then?
Then capi.tax could assign every row in your file. That does not automatically mean the result is complete: a sale without a matching purchase does not appear here, but in the audit trail as unmatched. It is always worth a look.
One gap comes without any notice: the IBKR Activity Statement as CSV reads only bond repayments from the corporate-actions section — splits are not applied there either. If you had splits, spin-offs or mergers, nothing appears here — check the affected securities yourself, or use the Flex Query as XML, which at least reports such cases. See corporate actions.