Perhaps that has been your experience but it hasn't been
mine. I will agree there are many transfer agents that seem
to do quite a poor job but technically they are required to
record all the information necessary to provide cost basis
information.

Of course I don't have the SEC regulation in front of me so
its possible that is something I read in the text book that
isn't true. I have though made this call many times and I
was provided the information needed. (not all of them
though)

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spinoza wrote:

- quote -

That will give you, at most, the trade date of the transfer,
not the actual transfer date or the price.

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One last thing I haven't seen mentioned yet. Every traded
stock has a transfer agent that tracks the purchase and
sales of all of its stock. If you were so inclined you could
give them a call and they can usually mail you your cost
basis information.

To save you time I looked it up for you.
this is the AT&T website:
http://www.att.com/ir/ss/tbi/

and here is the relevant contact info:

"If you have questions, please call us toll free at 1
800-348-8288 or email us at att[at]equiserve.com. If you are
calling from outside the continental U.S. please call us
collect at 1-816-843-4282. Our telephone representatives are
available Monday through Friday from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
Eastern Time."

Typically if you call that first 800 number and let them
identify you they can send you a mailing with your cost
basis information.

Spin

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Andy suggests:

Declare the whole $12 as profit using a cost basis of zero.

While this may be wrong, there is no way the IRS will ever
cause you any problems for this, since you will have paid
more taxes than due. If you main concern is to be "legal",
paying the extra $2 or so is worth it to ease your mind.....

Yes, I know this is not an efficient way of paying taxes,
but an extra $2 or so is a small price to pay instead of
calling in an accountant. I've never suspected that the IRS
would complain about sending them too much money. Andy

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john wrote:
- quote -

Is this $12 net of commission? If not, you need to put the
commission in as the cost basis, probably making it a loss.

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john wrote:

- quote -

Report such a small sale? Yes. Cost basis? I'd
estimate about one dollar, and pay the capital gains tax on
the 11 dollars, and that can't be much.

Now I know what I said above about pinching pennies (Look
to the pennies and the dollar take care of themsevles.),
but this just isn't worth a hill of bean to do the research
to save maybe 1 dollar in tax.

Heck, I even ignore less than a dollar on a bank
reconciliation these days for clients.

Merry Christmas, Y'all,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

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"john" <nov8eight[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

Report a cost basis of zero. Taxes on $12 long term cap
gain ain't going to kill you. Saves you all the headaches.

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john <nov8eight[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

The simplest thing is to report the $12 as long term capital
gains on Schedule D, using zero as your cost basis.

__
Art Kamlet ArtKamlet [at] AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH

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Generally, to avoid computer-generated form letters from the
IRS you want an entry on schedule D for every entry of a
1099-B. You may get the 1099 in the mail around 02/05. The
purchase basis would only be checked during an audit. You
could set the basis to zero to be safest.

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Well, maybe not a nightmare, but it's a bit annoying. I've
never sold a stock or mutual fund position, so i've never
had to deal with those issues at tax time. But here's my
story:

I only started learning alot about investing about a year
ago. But ever since I was a little boy (30 years ago?),
I've owned a few shares in ATT (a gift to a little boy), and
stupidly of course, received about 25 cents every month in
the mail (never thought about reinvesting dividends).
Anyway, that's not really relevant to my problem. A few
years ago, ATandT split off into a few pieces, those pieces
split off into more, etc. etc. and I just kept getting tons
of mail I didn't want from all these companies, including
big annual reports filling up my mailbox. I realized I
have to stop this!, but it wasn't until a few months ago
that I actually did something. I sold the ONE SHARE of ATT
stock that I now owned (or at least they claim thats all i
now owned, thru equiserve), and recieved a check for about
$12. Good, no more mail from THEM, at least. Now, I know
technically i have to report this sale to IRS, but there's
no way I know anything about "cost-basis" , splitoffs, or
anything else about this stock, as you can see from what I
wrote above about the history of all this. I have no
paperwork or records from 30 years ago when I was a baby,
nor does anyone else. Will I get into trouble if I fail to
report such a SMALL SALE? Will IRS pay attention to (or
notice) small sales like that? (By the way, I never
reported any of the tiny dividend checks, if that's what
they were, i received over the past 30 years. And if i do
have to report it, how can I possibly learn what "cost
basis??" numbers to use on a return?

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