Old worthless stock

[geekette]

Rummaging through our fireproof safe, I found a stock certificate and attached documents for a company that's long gone.  My grandmother bought me 20 shares of Toth Aluminum for Christmas in '83.  At the time they were valued at $120 ($6 each).  Now, as far as I can tell, they're worth nothing.  It's been so long apparently, that I can't even find when they were delisted.

It's certainly not much, but can I write this off as a loss on our taxes? 

[adamwoods137]

It looks like Toth aluminum went way bankrupt in 2004 about 50 million dollars in the hole that never got paid back.  It wasn't acquired or anything.  It's kind of interesting it sounds like this Toth guy got a loan from his daughter's (Caroline) husband's father.  When their last quarterly report came out they had nothing other than $380 and some patents.  So Caroline's father-in-law foreclosed on the aluminum business, after waiting basically until there was literally nothing left.  It doesn't look like there were any remaining assets to be paid out to shareholders after the company discontinued operations.  Unfortunately since this happened in 2004 I think it was too long ago for you to claim.  Consider reading this article: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/money-guides/writing-off-a-worthless-stock.aspx

[arebelspy]

Thanks for the helpful first post, Adam. Welcome to the forums!

[geekette]

Well, rats.  But thanks for the informative post!

[TomTX]

Tax writeoff on the loss...

[Vorpal]

Tax writeoff on the loss...

Somebody didn't read all the way to the end... ;)

[trugrit03]

This might sound weird,  but you may want to look at selling them on eBay as a souvenier. I had heard of people doing that with Enron shares,  but a quick eBay search reveals that a lot of people are doing it. Presumably there are some collectors out there. Not sure what causes some to be more valuable (some certificates seem to LOOK cooler than others) but it is worth a shot.