I have a mutual fund bought 1999, sold 2006. How do i figure short term and long term capital loss on it ?

Your basis is your original purchase price plus, as others have mentioned, any reinvested dividends. It would all be long term gain/loss except for any shares bought in the 12 months before you sold.

Subtract your basis form the net sales proceeds. If it's a negative amount, you have a long-term loss. There is no short term loss as you held it more than one year.

You should have received a "1099 statement" from your fund manager or from the brokerage house from whom you purchased it. The 1099 spells out short term and long term capital gains as well as any dividend income. An electronic copy of the 1099 is also sent to the IRS. You should take the information on this form and include it with your tax filings. If you haven't received a statement, contact the fund manager and request one.

More than likely you are going to need your annual statements from 1999 through 2006. Most mutuel funds have their dividends reinvested back into the fund. If that is the case, you need to add all of the reinvestments to your original purchase price, in order to calculate your profit or loss.

The original date of purchase is used for purposes of the buy date. If some dividends were reinvested in 2006, and then you sold it in 2006, those dividends are not separated. They are all long-term (since you bought and sold the fund beyond one year).

Did you buy in multiple installments?

If not, your long term capital gain is what you sold it for, minus what you paid.

If you did a monthly payment, or multiple payments on it, then you might want to consider using Quicken or Money to compute things. The basic calc is still the same, but you have to separate out the long term and short term stuff.