My wife's father passed away in September 2023; she and her sibling, per his will, split everything 50/50.
He had a number of stocks, held at a different brokerage than my wife's. To keep things simple (in theory, at least!) all were sold two months after he passed; half of the cash proceeds were wired to my wife's
brokerage, half to her sibling's.
The account in which the stocks were held and then sold in was in both my wife's and her sibling's names; in theory, I'd like to import the 1099-B into Turbo Tax, but the import isn't going to magically split everything in half, so am I better off just trying to enter everything manually? Or go ahead and do the import and adjust every single sale, proceeds and cost basis, accordingly? Neither sounds very appetizing and ripe for potential error, but I don't see any other option!
To the extent it matters, almost all of the positions declined in value from the date acquired to the date of sale, leading to a fairly substantial net capital loss - one that we'll be able to carry over for years to come and use to offset any future cap gains (assuming, of course, that I report everything accurately).
Regarding the IRS, should I worry that what's being reported to them by the brokerage, which is of course the total acquisition and sales numbers, won't match what I'll be reporting in our joint return (which of course will/should be exactly half of what was reported to the IRS)?
Thanks so much for any insight/advice/wisdom! I probably should have started this process earlier (or hired someone else to do my taxes, given the complexity) but I've done them myself for decades using the wonderful TT so why stop now?
