Foreign Taxes Paid - basis for taxes paid

[Don808]

I have an account comprised entirely of mutual funds. Foreign taxes were paid. There is no entry in the yearly reporting statement to indicate the basis for those taxes. Turbo Tax (Form1116), is looking for an entry. How do I handle this situation?

My frustration is compounded by having a stock fund which includes a foreign owned company (Royal Dutch Shell),  which also has foreign taxes paid, but I was able to pull out the exact amount of income from that equity using my yearly statement which lists each stock and the amount of dividend paid. No such luck with with the mutual fund account..

I very well could have missed the solution reading Pub 551, but I'm hoping someone else had this problem and has a solution. 

[rogge1722]

"Basis for taxes paid" doesn't make sense.  Basis is what you paid for the stock adjusted for any event that either increases or decreases the initial cost. 

[Don808]

The statement is: 'You reported x dollars earned for this account, Of this amount how much  was earned n the country in which the foreign tax was paid.'  This is a Fidelity account.. It lists Form 1099-DIV, Form 1099-INT  (No entries), Form 1099-MISC  (no entries), and form 1099-B, which goes on for 20 pages listing mutual fund names, sales, and subtotals. no mention of any foreign activity.

[ErnieS0]

Fidelity does not break out foreign dividends. You have to go to the 1099-DIV detail and look at each dividend payment. There will be several columns, including foreign tax paid. Whenever you see foreign tax paid, go across the row to see the amount of corresponding dividends as foreign dividends.

Add up all the rows of dividends with associated foreign tax and enter the total amount.

[Don808]

I finally called Fidelity and talked to a person who looked at the report I was using only to discover Fidelity had sent me only half of the report, with the info I needed on the last pages.  You're response is what made me realize something was wrong with the report I was looking at and seek an answer from Fidelity. When the Fidelity agent told me to 'look at page 40', and I had only a total of 20 pages, we both realized I did not have the info I needed.  In the past I used a CPA to prepare my taxes so I never examined the documents I received so much as gather them in a folder and present all my tax items to the CPA. He did the dirty work. and I accepted what he prepared.  Last year (2019 tax year), I decided it was time to doing my own tax returns. Foreign tax paid was an issue but some how I forced that return through Turbo Tax. I'm waiting to hear from the IRS but so far, no phone calls. But at this point, I know where all the numbers come from, where they go and can and can defend every line in my current return. I expect that to be the case going forward. 

You stated very simply what I should be looking for and it was not there. That was the impetus to go back to Fidelity and find out why the answer was not in that report.