Often there are other pages to the 1099-B which shows the "adjusted cost" basis. they don't have to pay tax on that twice

Hopefully your client gave you all the pages, dig to the back, you should fine a supplemental page with adjusted basis, if not, you may have to ask the client for his RSU confirmations and do some math manually.

The ordinary income and adjusted cost basis are listed in the supplemental info.   What is puzzling to me is that the adjusted cost basis is LESS than the ordinary income.  I can think of reasons for the adjusted cost basis to be more, but my mind is blank when trying to think of why it could be less.  

The ordinary income and adjusted cost basis are listed in the supplemental info.   What is puzzling to me is that the adjusted cost basis is LESS than the ordinary income.  I can think of reasons for the adjusted cost basis to be more, but my mind is blank when trying to think of why it could be less.  

Or they got vested in XX shares and had W-2 income, and they sold XX-yy shares.

Sometimes people keep some or all of the shares they get.

Your friend is a genius!   Thank you so much.   I found nondividend distributions in box 3 of the 1099-DIV from 2021.  

@rbynaker gets the credit!

Thanks, Lisa!

I appreciate you being the go-between and it's awesome that we got this solved.

Rick

I cringe whenever I see employee stock option transactions.  Since most of my clients have retired, I don't see as many these days.  Mostly, I don't like watching the client's fortune tied up with the vicissitudes of the employer's business.  I have watched too many people lose too much on stocks like GE and Intel, because they refused to sell.  (On the other hand, my client who retired from Sears at just the right time, sold all the company stock and bought good mutual funds, is now worth a small fortune.)

Best advice, as usual, is "exercise and sell."  That's what the smart people at Intuit do:

Reuters, March 24:  "Tessel Marianna, Executive Vice President at Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU), recently sold 7,385 shares of the company’s common stock, according to a recent SEC filing. The shares were sold at an average price of $600.1266, resulting in a total transaction value of approximately $4.43 million.

In a related transaction, Marianna exercised stock options to acquire the same number of shares at $216.64 per share before the sale. Following these transactions, Marianna holds 40,190 shares of Intuit stock."

Reuters, incidentally, is confused.  Her name is Marianna Tessel, not Tessel Marianna.  That's what happens when you let AI write your stories.