A relative died and left some stock. I sold it and shared it with other family members. It wasn’t alot on money- $6,000 total, shared among 6 people. The sale transaction occured in my name and I got a 1099 B form.
Should I be paying taxes on the whole 6K I recieved from the sale, the $1000.00 share I got, or only the amount of increase in the value of the stock between purchase and sale (which I don’t know- will the IRS figure that for me?).
As you can tell, I didn’t hold any back to pay taxes and will have to ask the other 5 for a little back. I’m hoping to avoid that.
You should only have to pay taxes on the difference between what the stock was worth when you got it, and what it was worth when you sold it. You don’t get taxed on anything you inherit, only on the capital gain that occurs after you’ve inherited it. And that increase in value isn’t regular income, but is a capital gain, though it will probably get taxed at a higher rate because (I’m assuming) you held the stock for less than one year.
In technical terms, the death of the original purchaser resets the basis value of the stock for capital gain purposes, so it doesn’t matter what he paid for the stock way back when.
I’m not a tax expert, but I believe what you’d do is report it on Schedule D, showing the date you inherited the stock as the “date acquired,” showing the value of the stock on that date as the “cost or other basis,” and showing what you sold it for as the “sales price.” The difference would be your capital gain.
The fact that you chose to give some of the money away doesn’t have any effect on the tax situation - you made some gifts, which doesn’t change your taxes or the taxes of the folks who received the gifts.