The tax filing thing should be a non-issue. Yes you'll probably get a 1099-B with like a gazillion entries. But, assuming this is done normally, all your holdings will be covered stocks, and all the trades will show up as reported to the IRS in box 12. Then you'll be able to just summary entry with IRS 8949 box A/D, entering like literally two lines, and you're set.
It sounds bad but it won't (I'M GUESSING!) be bad for tax filing headaches - two lines, same as any other broker.
Yea I don't like Apex and they've fucked up a couple things for me before, but they should get this part right.
And even if they don't...
Say they don't report basis to the IRS, you can still enter summary, and just physically mail the IRS your 1099-B (even if you efile), and it'll still be okay without too much work.
[1] my complaints stem mostly from portability. With a ~0.03% fee ETF, I can go to any broker in the future and still deal with it. If for whatever reason I want to stop working with <direct indexer X>, now I'm stuck dealing with thousands of individual holdings. If I was operating with large enough amounts that I could literally transfer to a different broker (IBKR) and hoist the remains into a creation unit of VTI or whatever, sure. But that's increments of $30M each, so ... lol not for people like me.
Or maybe in the future there's enough direct indexer services that they solve portability at increments smaller than <huge ETF creation unit>. Then maybe yea, idk.
