Did you sell stocks or bonds during the year? If YES, you should have received Form 1099B, Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions.

Your investment service company is required to issue Form 1099B to you by February 15. If you did not receive the form in the mail, you may need to download the form from your brokerage website. Contact your broker for more information about obtaining your Form 1099B.

You will receive Form 1099-B, Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions, if any of the following events happened during the year:

• You sold stocks or bonds
• Your brokerage firm sold stocks or bonds for an account you own
• You exercised certain stock options granted to you by your employer

If you received Form 1099B, you must report the following information on your tax return.

• Gross proceeds for each sale
• Your cost-basis in the stock you own
• Net profit for each sale

Important Year-End Information Statement

Some brokerage firms issue year-end statements showing stock sales and cost-basis information. If you received such a statement, please bring the statement to your tax interview. If your broker did not provide you with a year-end statement, or if the information on your year-end statement is incomplete, you should contact your broker to request the information.

(ESPP) Employee Stock Purchase Plans

If your employer allowed you to purchase company stock at a discount, then you are probably participating in an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP).

If you sold stock you acquired through your ESPP, you may need to report the sale on your tax return. Your employer should have provided you with a "Notice of Sale," or other company document that tells you when when you sold your stock and how much if any of the sales proceeds were added to your paycheck.

To report the sale of ESPPs on your tax return, we need you to provide us with the following information:

• Purchase date of stock sold
• Purchase price of stock sold
• The amount of income your employer included in your paycheck when you sold the stock
• Notice of Sale, Notice of Exercise, paystub or other company document showing the amount of income you received from each sale.
• Form 3922 for the year you purchased the ESPP stock.

(ISO) Incentive Stock Option

If you exercised but did not sell stock options, you could have qualifying options and may need to report the purchase of your options on your tax return under the rules for calculating the Alternative Minimum Tax.

If you sold qualified or non-qualified stock options at work, it is likely your profits from the sale of these options were reported on your W2. Even if income from the exercise of stock options was included in your W2, it is still necessary to report the sale on your tax return in most cases. We will need you to provide us with the following information to properly report the sale of stock options on your tax return:

• 1099B
• Gross-up information, showing how much income was added to your pay due to exercise of stock options.
• The exercise price of your options
• Form 3921 for the year you purchased the stock

Your employer should be able to provide you with much of this information on a "Notice of Exercise," or other corporate document.

Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrency Trades

If you sold cryptocurriencies you should have received Form 1099-K to report the gross sales amounts.  Your cryptocurrency account should provide you with a record of your purchases and sales of cryptocurrency for the year.  If this information is available in electronic format, please provide us with a copy.  You can also use the Excel spreadsheet document we have created to put together a record of your buys and sells for the year.

Foreign Stock Holdings

If you sold stock held in portfolios or brokerage firms located outside of the United States, you will probably not receive a Form 1099-B.  This means you will need to work with your foreign wealth-management company to gather information needed for each stock sale you had during the year. 

Click here to open an Excel Spreadsheet Document that will help you report the required information for your stock sales.

Inherited or Gifted Stock

Be sure to notify your preparer if you acquired your stock through inheritance, as a gift or in a divorce. Special rules apply to calculating cost basis in these situations.

• If you received stock as a gift, please request purchase information from the person who gave you the gift.
• If you received stock as an inheritance, your tax preparer will assist you with obtaining cost information. You preparer will need to know the date of death of the person who left you the stock.