stock via employer

[bigio1985]

I got stock via my employer. They take out an amount out of my paycheck. This should appear on my W2, is that right? Do I have to report it anywhere else on my tax return?

[ThomasM125]

When you acquire company stock at a discount the value of the discount may be reported on your W-2 in the year you acquire the stock or when you sell it, depending on what type of company stock it is. Since you had taxes taken out of your pay, it is likely the company either withheld shares of stock or sold shares that you were awarded to pay the associated payroll and income taxes.

If shares were sold, you should receive a Form 1099-B reporting the sale of stock, you will need to report that. You may need to adjust the cost basis reported on the Form 1099-B to reflect the discount income reported on your W-2 form. 

You need to report the sale of those shares to report any resulting gain or loss, but the gain or loss is minimal since you buy and sell them almost immediately. So, the gain on sale when you report the Form 1099-B in TurboTax should be minimal. Often, the Form 1099-B will report a minimal amount for the cost basis as you may have paid little or nothing to acquire the shares. However, the income reported on your W-2 form needs to be included in the cost basis of the shares sold, so you may need to adjust the cost basis reported on the Form 1099-B to compensate for that.

You enter investment sales in the Wages and Income section of TurboTax, then Investment Income, then Stocks, cryptocurrency, Mutual Funds, Bonds, etc... Choose Stock, Bonds, Mutual Funds as the type of investment you want to enter. You'll come to a screen where you can enter in your sales proceeds and cost basis.

On the stock sale screen, indicate that the cost basis is missing or incorrect and you will have an opportunity to enter the correct cost basis: