How to Donate Stock to Charity

Call a certified pubic accountant or a tax professional to determine how the donation will affect your taxes. In general, it is better to donate stock that has appreciated in value rather than stock that has lost value.
Look up the name of the charity at the IRS website (See Resources) to ensure that they are a 503c certified organization or a religious organization, which are the only ones that you can obtain a tax deduction for. You can donate to unapproved charities, but you will receive no tax benefits.
Call the charitable organization that you want to donate to and ask them the name and account number for their brokerage account. Not all charities have brokerage accounts set up, in which case they must establish one or you cannot donate your stock to them.
Contact your brokerage account and provide them with the transfer information you obtained from the charitable organization. Tell the broker how much of the stock you wish to donate and the date you want it transferred on.
Print out a copy of the stock transfer transaction and place it in your files for tax purposes. In addition, ask the charity to provide you with a receipt as soon as it receives the funds.

How to Report Non

Examine Box 1 of your Form W-2. It should be a higher amount than your annual salary. The increase is your income from exercising the stock options. Your employer will provide details on the amount in Box 1 to ensure that it includes salary, plus the difference between the option exercise price and the value of stock purchased on the exercise date.
Enter on Line 7 of Form 1040 the amount from Box 1 of your W-2. Include W-2 income from other employers, including the W-2 of a spouse if you file a joint tax return. Add the income from exercising the stock options if that amount is not already on your W-2.
Record the option exercise date in the first column of the ledger.
Write the market value of the stock on the option exercise date in the next ledger column. Label the column 'cost basis.'
Keep the ledger as a record of your purchase date and cost basis. Use this to determine taxable gain or loss when the stock is sold.

How to Buy Partial Shares of Stock (3 Steps)

Analyze your investment objectives and risk tolerance before you start researching companies that offer direct investment plans. Once you know the kind of stocks that are appropriate for your portfolio, look for companies that offer a direct stock purchase plan. Contact each company's investor relations department and request a plan prospectus and any other company disclosure statements that are available. Read this information carefully to ensure that you understand the plan's provisions, and select a company to trade with.
Open an account with the selected company's plan administrator. Complete a new account application if required, which will ask for some personal information, such as your name, address, contact information, and Social Security number. Some plans allow you to set up a regular, automatic investment plan that drafts a pre-determined checking or savings account. You'll be able to choose whether you want your dividends to be automatically reinvested into additional company shares or to be paid to you in cash, or whether you want a combination of the two.
Deposit the money for your purchase. When you first set up your account you might have to pay an application fee, set-up fee, or new account fee along with the amount of your initial purchase. Rather than purchasing a fixed number of shares of company stock, you'll be contributing a fixed dollar amount. The plan administrator will pool your money with money from all of the other plan participants and purchase company stock in one transaction. The plan administrator will divide the shares among each of the plan participants on a pro rata basis, which will likely result in both whole and partial shares credited to your account.