Doree, as Richard implied, you want to evaluate carefully
whether to sell this stock all at once. Two things to start
evaluating before you sell any of this stock:
1.
Depending on your income level and the stock's basis, you
may be able to pay no tax at all on your sale. A special low
tax rate for long term capital gains kicks in starting this
year, but only up to a certain income.
2.
Selling the stock all at once is very likely to result in
your throwing away a lot of money on capital gains taxes.
You have certificates instead of the shares on file
electronically, so I am betting you have held the shares for
some time, and the capital gain is quite large. But your
confirming this would help people to advise you, should you
need tax advise. The group misc.taxes.moderated is also a
good resource for this.
You may also want to strongly consider rolling over your
401(k) to a Traditional IRA. You will pay no taxes on this
rollover. You will have more control over the money in the
account. E.g. you could invest all of the 401(k) in CDs if
you want.
No one's query is stupid around here. Good luck.
--------------------------------------
Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators
strive
to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting
guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to
which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM
THE
MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on
the
Newsgroup.
|
