Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering

Sale of jointly owned stock
It depends on when she became the shareholder of record. When your wife received the stock, was ownership clearly transferred to her?  If it was, then she should have the right to sell it if she wants.  The gross amount of the sale will be reported to the IRS, and then it will be up to you (and/or your tax advisers) to determine its tax basis so that you pay tax only on the appropriate gain. If she hasn't become the shareholder of record yet, then it can be a bit of a mess.  Your wife's father saying "Merry Christmas; I'm giving you 500 shares of AAPL" doesn't transfer ownership to you.  Him calling up the brokerage and transferring them into an account with her name (or her name and his name) does. Is your wife's father's estate settled yet?  If not, then sorting all of this out is part of the fun.  If it is, and this asset was left dangling out there, then that's beyond anything I know about.