Noncovered Securities with Undetermined Holding Period

[jmkilla58]

I have (5) items on my 1099-B from Morgan Stanley which classify the transactions as Non-Covered Securities with Underdetermined Holding Period.  I can determine the Date Acquired for the shares in question (iShares Silver Shares ETF), but not sure what Cost Basis that I should be using (since the shares sold were likely partial shares with proceeds used to cover investment expenses from the sale of bullion shares  (see note below). Can I just use the price per share of the original Cost Basis as factor to come of with the Cost Basis for these partial shares?

NOTES FROM 1099-B:

# Morgan Stanley reports transactions in the Noncovered Securities with Undetermined Holding Period Section of the 1099-B portion of the 1099 Consolidated Tax Statement
when the holding period or cost basis is not readily available, and therefore Morgan Stanley is not able to determine the appropriate holding period designation for these
transactions. Please consult with your tax advisor.

CT - The proceeds amount is the sales price of the bullion sold by the Trust to pay investment expenses. Proceeds from the sale of bullion are reported on Form 1099-B.

Thanks in advance.

[RaifH]

The cost basis for the sales to cover expenses can be determined from this document. 

If you take the number from the third column and divide it by the second column, that will give you the fraction of silver used to cover expenses. Multiply that by your total cost basis to get your cost basis for the sale. 

Then for the next month, you reduce your cost basis for the sale from the previous month. @Jack100000 has suggested an excel spreadsheet to calculate this for you in the bottom of this post related to GLD shares which has similar reporting. 

[jmkilla58]

Thanks.  I was able to use the information you provided, along with @Jack1000000 input to come up with the cost basis of the sales.  Glad I'm out of that ETF though as this was too much work for little impact on my tax bill.