My husband died suddenly a month ago. I don't know what he paid for some of the stocks he sold last year and I don't know how to find out. He always did the taxes. Does the IRS give you any breaks in this situation?
2007-02-20 11:09:18 · 6 answers · asked by grey gus 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Taxes ➔ United States
If you husband owned them soley, the basis is stepped up to the FMV at the time of death, so the purchase price wouldn't matter. But you're saying he sold them before he died, so in this case, you need the purchase price.
You need to call the broker who sold them and ask them the basis. Many times, they have the purchase info on file. If they say "it was transferred in, I don't know" as where it was transferred from and call THEM.
Dig through all your files, I'll bet your husband has a file w/ his stock info in it.
Good luck.
2007-02-20 14:23:20 · answer #1 · answered by LC 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Don't try to do it yourself. Get a certifed accountant (CPA) and have them do it for you. This will protect you in the event the IRS (who will not show mercy) decides to come after you if you have it wrong. It's worth the accountant's fee even if they charge a couple hundred dollars depending on the difficulty of your situation.
I made a simple mistake on my own taxes regarding cost basis for stocks. The IRS sent me a letter with an ammended tax return along with a bill the following summer for over $19,000 and said either pay it within 2 weeks or prove to them there is a mistake in their ammended tax return. I paid a small fee to an accountant to correct the error in my tax return and she sent a letter to the IRS on my behalf and luckily the issue was resolved. The taxes were paid, it just wasn't filled out properly on my return.
2007-02-20 11:29:06 · answer #2 · answered by wired35 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
IRS allows you to deduct what you paid for the stocks from the sale proceeds. The gain on the sale is taxable. The loss can be used up to $3,000 each year to reduce your taxable income.
Contact your broker and ask him for the amounts your husband paid for his stock purchases. Take the stocks sold and match the shares to the statement amounts when he purchased, and you should be able to compute gain or loss for federal income tax purposes.
2007-02-20 11:20:12 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Check through his files. You'll probably find brokerage account statements.
Contact the company - they'll be able to guide you.
By doing some digging, you may even find the original Purchase Confirmations.
With the above, a Tax Accountant can help you put it all together.
One other place to check is to see if he had an 'on-line' way of keeping track of his investments.
Hope this helps a little. Just know that there are 'paper trails' that can be found to give you your answers.
Good Luck.
2007-02-20 11:18:28 · answer #4 · answered by smiling_freds_biz_info 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Do you know when he bought them? The broker might be able to help on that, or if he had the stock certificates directly in his own possession, then they might have a date on them. You can find old stock prices on the Internet. If you know about when they were purchased, you could take the lowest price in that timeframe as the basis.
The official rule is that if you can't show the basis, you have to use zero, but if you can at least show that he purchased them and approximately when, you can do better than that.
Good luck.
2007-02-20 12:04:13 · answer #5 · answered by Judy 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If the stock was in your husband's name only, you inherit at the Fair Market Value at the time of his death. If it was in both of your names, his half has its basis adjusted. If it was sold before his death, none of this applies. Please consult a tax professional that cam get all the details.
2007-02-20 12:43:11 · answer #6 · answered by STEVEN F 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋