Day traders' weekend lounge May 6 - 8, page-81

I have been a CA for many years, so I can share some of my opinion, but of course you should always seek you own advice.

to be classified a trader, ATO will look at whether you have an intention to make profit, do you have a business plan, how often you trade and etc, for example, investors (capital account) are usually dividend seeking but not always the case, you can also trade many times a day but still on capital account, it is a very tricky question and every accountant has their own interpretation on this.

if you have been trading/investing consistently over all these years, usually there is no reason for changing from capital account to revenue account. not only will you not able to use your capital loss, you also lost the capital gain discount on your long term holding.

however there are benefits of switching to a trader. if you have large income from elsewhere (says, rental income and your pension etc) your trading losses can be use to offset all income, compare to capital loss which can only be used to offset capital gain.

so, not knowing your full situation its hard to know why you accountant decide to switch, some accountant will decide to change if they think you are under a risk of audit. you can ask him to show you how you are better off from this change.

I hope this helps.