[ricantmal]

I have been told that if the "Bush" tax cuts are not extended I am better off to withdraw the stock this year. I opened the stock with post-tax dollars from my pay check. Each year the dividends were reported as income (or loss) on my federal taxes. What additional dollars do I owe other then the dividends (or loss) for the year I withdraw. Do I take each year dividends, subtract the initial investment and then subtract the losses(if any) and then pay taxes? Doesn't make sense, since the result should be 0. I do not and I think Putnam has not maintained the past 25 years records for this. What do I do then?

[bamahardball]

You owe taxes on your capital gains. Meaning if you put $100 in and your investment is now worth $105 then you owe taxes on the $5 not the $105. Its important that you track what you've paid in each year. As far as the Bush taxes goes it does sound as if they are going to be repelled at least if this investment will put you over $250K next year. There does seem to be a big movement to increase capital gains tax next year which would have the biggest negative impact to you. As of now depending on your ordinary tax rate determines what your Cap Gains tax will be:
Ordinary 10-15% then Cap Gains tax is 0%, if your ordinary rate is 15%. The proposal is to move into the 20-35% percent rate. Hope this helps. You may want to talk to someone face to face with the correct creidentials on this one.

[ebaines]

Just to clarify - if you have been reinvesting your dividends in a stock or mutual fund each quarter, your tax cost basis is the sum of your initial investment plus all the reinvested dividends over the years. Then when you sell your stock you owe capital gains tax on the difference between your sales proceeds and the cost basis.

If you've been doing this through Putnam for the past 25 years they very well may have your total cost basis in their records. Look carefully at your latest statement and see if it's there.