What the need for Cost Basis information when reporting Stock Donations to Charities? The entire market value of the security on the day of donation is deductible.

[RobertB4444]

If you are nowhere near the AGI limits then it doesn't matter what you put in there.  Your donation is made at the market value.  Just put zero.

@jimmys1 

[elijahcarrel]

This seems conclusively like a TurboTax bug.

I tried angelsf1's approach of leaving the cost basis blank and clicking "Back." It allowed me to proceed all the way to the end and even allowed me to pay for TurboTax Premier before telling me that I either needed to fill out something in that field or file by mail, because TurboTax wouldn't e-file for me without me putting something in the field.

[MonikaK1]

When you enter information for a charitable contribution of stock, TurboTax needs the cost basis entered if your donated stock was held for less than one year because in that case the contribution amount will be limited to the cost basis.

If you held the stock for longer than a year, then TurboTax will use the fair market value for the contribution. In that case, use your best estimate of the basis if you don't know the exact amount and enter that in the basis box.

See this help article for more information from TurboTax on determining the original purchase price. For example, view the historical section at Marketwatch or Nasdaq, or Yahoo Finance.

If you plan to donate property worth more than $5,000 ($10,000 for stock in closely-held firms), you'll need to get a formal appraisal by an appraiser who meets IRS guidelines. See this TurboTax tips article for more information.

[ttax2]

Here, and many other places, a date field allows "various".

[jimmys1]

It's now 6 years after this question was initially posted to TurboTax and this bug is still not fixed. I'm going to do my best to summarize the Expert responses here:

@IsabellaG : This DOESN'T matter (but no guidance for what value to put there, since you still have to enter it)
@DaveF1006 : This DOES matter (Next post - try just entering 0 anyway)
@JohnB5677 : This DOESN'T matter
@VictoriaD75 : This DOES matter.
@PattiF : This DOESN'T matter (even though the IRS explicitly says that it does)
@RobertB4444 : This DOES matter, and putting 0 could have important implications even if your stocks are > 1 year old (though not for most people)

It is very disheartening to come back to this after 2 years with no resolution whatsoever. To me, this seems conclusively like a TurboTax bug - the IRS very specifically says to leave this field blank.

(https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i8283)

Column (g).

Do not complete this column for publicly traded securities held more than 12 months, unless you elect to limit your deduction cost basis. See section 170(b)(1)(C)(iii). Keep records on cost or other basis.

Yet TurboTax does not give that option! 0 is NOT the same thing as blank. My current understanding is "putting 0 is probably fine for most people, I think", but that's not an answer, just a workaround. To be clear though, I'm just some person doing his taxes - I really don't know what I'm doing and could be totally wrong about any of this. But sadly this thread doesn't really help get any answers.

I would really appreciate this bug to be fixed, and better clarification about this problem.

[LDSmith]

Thanks @jimmys1 - I really wish I would have skipped to the end of this thread to get the summary instead of wasting a half hour coming to the same conclusion.

TurboTax really needs to clarify in the field help what users should put into the Cost Basis for different circumstances. Since the IRS says it should NOT be zero in their official instructions, for TurboTax to require a ZERO is simply not a good solution.  

It seems a simply coding change to say "if acquisition date is Various", allow field to be blank". Or create a checkbox, "have you held this stock for longer than one year?" If you check the box, the cost basis field can be left blank.