1099B

[Phil949598]

I moved my shares from one brokerage to another about 2 years ago.  I sold shares in 2020 but since i did not start the account with Fidelity they did not report a cost basis.  Do i have to use FIFO or LIFO to identify the shares i sold?

Can i not just go thru my records and identify the shares that i sold myself rather than have large gains if i had to use FIFO since some of the stock is over 20 years old and has significant gains.  If i use LIFO i will have to pay short term gains (income) on a good amount of the stock proceeds.  Can i just identify the stock that i sold that is more than a year old?  Sort of LIFO minus a year.  That will give me the least gains this year and reduce the tax burden this year.

[ThomasM125]

FIFO is the default method that the IRS uses, unless you have notified your broker that you want to use LIFO and you consistently apply that method. However, if you can specifically identify the shares sold with the ones purchased, you can use that method along with the FIFO method for the shares you cannot match up.

[Edited 5/4/21 at 2:05 PST]

@Phil949598