Own stock in company that has gone bankrupt?
Question:
Answer:
You can only claim worthless stock in the year that the stock was declared worthless. If the company went bankrupt in 2001, that would probalby be 2001 or 2002. You'll have to research that to be sure.
Normally you have to file a claim for a refund withing 3 years of the filing deadline but there is an exception for worthless securities. You have 7 years to file the claim for the refund in that case.
You'll need to file an amended return for the year that the stock was declared worthless. File Schedule D to claim the loss. The sales price will be $0 and the cost will be whatever your basis was. Write "worthless" on the line next to the name of the stock.
You can claim up to $3,000 in capital losses in any one year. If you had any captial gains, the loss will offset the gains first, however, so you may be able to claim more than $3,000 if you had more than $3,000 in gains that year. Any excess must be carried forward to future tax years. If you do that, you'll have to amend the returns for those years as well until the loss is used up. Include a note with those other amended returns noting the fact that the reason for the amended return is for capital loss carry-over due to a worthless stock and list the name of the stock and the year that it was declared worthless.
If the shares lost more value this year, you can. If you didn't claim your capital losses in 2001, you can amend your 2001 return (I think--you are getting close to the deadline--I think it is 7 years.)
I wouldn't try to use it because generally you can only declare a capital loss in the year it actually happens... 2001 in your case... but I'm not a CPA
You have to have the stock declared as being unmarketable. Meaning it can't be sold and therefore holds no value. Your brokerage firm can do this for you. As soon as that is done, you can declare the loss.
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