[quote name='TheRock88']Thanks budge, iirc she owns somewhere 550 or so shares. She used to work for them around 1983 or 84 so she bought them dirt cheap back then. Dont remember how much but according to google, it was around $4 a share. She's been holding on to them ever since so that she could retire so she's looking to sell them any time now.[/QUOTE]
Capital gains tax applies to stock sales -- I think there's a one time loophole somewhere, if your mom hasn't used it, but if she owns say, 550 shares and can sell them at a profit of $100 a share, she's going to have to pay capital gains tax on 55k for the next fiscal year's tax return. That's something else worth looking into, just so it's not like "I'm going to walk out of this with 50k+ for retirement" and realistically, you end up seeing like 38k or something.
The other thing worth noting, since you mention retirement, is that at this stage of the game, she *should* probably be playing conservative. While Budge's assertion that Apple stock might hold it's value could be sound, it's nothing compared to the stability of say, a Roth IRA. If she could flip her potential profit from the stock sale immediately into a Roth IRA (which are supposed to be the bees' knees when it comes to retirement planning), that may be a better idea for the long run -- then again when you say "considering retiring" if you mean next week vs. "in a few years", that also changes shit.