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videobill · Mar 27, 2008, 12:16 PM

We bought stock in AT&T Corp. from 1975 to 1983 and our financial advisor said we should sell the stock and diversify. When we went to do our taxes or accountant said we need to know what we paid for the stocks during those years or we will have to pay capital gains on the amount of the cashed stock. We have tried to find info on the stock prices for those years 1975-1983 on the internet but have found nothing. If anyone knows where to find the info that would be great!
Thanks:D

KISS · Mar 27, 2008, 01:50 PM

The information your asking for won't help, You need your statements for those years. Each time a stock is re-invested and you don't know what dates that occurred on, your out of luck.
You may have to pay for statements for each year from the holding company and then there is a fair amount of work to get the "cost basis".

There are a few different ways of figuring the capital gain, but you must always use the same method once elected for that stock. The simplest is called "Average cost Basis". This is where you sum the dollar value all the stock that was purchased and re-invested and divide by the number of shares held when you sold a portion. Lets say you get 1000 shares at $1.00 a share and you sold 100.

This number then becomes the number you use for subsequent sales. You then have 900 shares that cost you an average cost of $1.00. Each re-investment is counted again and you might find you have 200 additional shares cosing $1.50 when you sell again. You then figure the average cost of 1100 shares.

You need these statements in case of an IRS audit.