NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - Q. I'm a shareholder of a bankrupt tech company. I assume my shares are now worthless, but I need confirmation so that I can write it off on my taxes. What exactly do I do?

-- Judy Williams, Reno

A. Ahh, the tech bust. When a publicly traded company seems to have tanked for good, shareholders are typically left scrambling for an IRS-approved death certificate. But it seems that tech companies, with their complex licensing and partnering agreements, have made post-boom tax-loss paperwork even more, well, taxing.

Your troubled techster, SonicBlue, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in San Jose in March 2003, after 10 wacky years creating high-tech graphic accelerators (and who doesn't need those?). Its shares no longer trade.

In theory, capturing your loss, about $600, to offset any capital gains is a smart tax move. But the IRS is vague about the documentation you need (check IRS Publication 550 to experience the vagueness yourself).

And shareholders must be as sure as they can be that the company won't emerge from Chapter 11 and become profitable again before they take the loss. So tax-savvy shareholders need to be paperwork detectives.

Our first step was to read the bankruptcy file for SonicBlue, where we saw that you had your own personal committee: the Official Committee of the Unsecured Creditor.

Bondholders, the IRS and banks are typically secured creditors in bankruptcies, meaning they are given priority to be repaid; shareholders have no such guarantee.

We called head counsel Craig Rankin for the scoop. He was blunt: "The stock is worthless."

Progress! "The documents clearly show that all assets have been sold, so it's acceptable to take the loss."

Rankin has forwarded you a courtesy copy of SonicBlue's most recent monthly operating report, a requirement of bankruptcy that lists the latest details on assets and liabilities. This should be enough for the IRS, but check with your own tax adviser.

Incidentally, you (or anyone) can get copies of bankruptcy documents at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov for about 7 cents per page.

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