Kinda need answer fast, because I’m in the middle of tax preparation and I am considering selling 258 shares of IBM stock that I bought in the year 2000. If I sell it, I’d need to calculate the capital gains I earned over the last 15 years, for which I’d need to know how much I paid for the shares in 2000.
I did not save the paperwork, or more precisely, the paperwork I saved identified the number of shares I bought, but no purchase price was indicated, although there were blank lines where this info should have been provided. :mad: :mad: :mad:
I bought it through Charles Schwab, and I’m sure I’ll sell it through them, so maybe they would know?
But I’m hoping that there is a Way Back machine on the Internet where I can find out my purchase price before going to see Mr. Schwab, so I can decide whether to sell my shares now, and if I do, how much tax I’d be paying on my capital gains.
Quick and Dirty: Go to Google finance and search for the stock ticker. Select a ten year view and check what the stock price was 10 years ago.
If you need an exact price on a specific day, I’m not sure where to find that, but stock prices are public information and I’m sure its online somewhere.
For future reference, a Google search of “[stock symbol] historic prices” usually gets you to a place where you can look up old price points. To a point, that is.
My wife sold some stock a few years back that was originally purchased in the 1980s, and the records we could find stopped just before the year it was bought. We used the oldest price we could find for an estimate on the tax return. A good faith estimate in that situation is usually acceptable to the IRS.
You’re right! If I sell between now and Dec. 31, 2015, this would have implications for the 2015 tax year. :smack:
Finance is clearly not my strong point!
ETA: Although to my credit, this purchase has been a good one, considering that IBM pays good dividends – averaging more than $1,000 per year for my 258 shares.