dave100: that's interesting and had to do some surfing. Cutting & pasting the whole article I found since this was quite readable and, Luddite that I am, my attemps at links go off into cyberspace. Don't throw away anything you've faithfully saved till now - quarterly statements, confirmations, etc. since the buy/sell, gain/loss tracking goes forward and it's still up to you to be able to track your dealings backward. Right? I have a couple of brokerage accounts as well as investments outside brokerages - no problem there as I can see. But I initially received, as a gift, a block of stock in our local power company back in the 70's. (I still have the initial cost basis, etc. paperwork). But I have always reinvested the dividends to purchase more shares and the new cost basis is, of course, reflected on the next statement. I've saved every one of these statements over the approx. 40 years in the event I'd ever sell some of it since any sale is going to involve a real mix of share price. I like hard copies of things; I don't do much online tracking. Consequently I have boxes of "important" investment papers all in good order. The beauty of it is my heirs will not be pulling their hair out trying to find things when THAT TIME comes. (We've done enough sifting in dealing with others' estates to have learned some valuable lessons.) The article: [Broker-dealers, mutual fund companies and fund custodians are updating systems to comply with the cost basis reporting requirements included in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Brokers must begin reporting cost basis to the Internal Revenue Service and to taxpayers for trades beginning Jan.1, 2011; fund companies have until 2012 to comply. Custodians are not required to comply with the legislation, but they provide the technology as a service to their broker-dealer clients. For their part, wirehouses already track this data so the deadline is a non-issue for them. "The tech implications for cost basis are significant and if firms don't start now, they will never get it done in time," said Sean Cunniff, research director for brokerage and wealth management at Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup. The aim is to guarantee full reporting of capital gains so the IRS receives its fair cut of investors' profits. Estimates from the Government Accountability Office and IRS put the amount of underreported capital gains at $7 billion to $11 billion per year. REDUCED TAX BILLS Ironically, because the technology allows for improvement of cost basis reporting, many advisers will be able to harvest losses more efficiently, reducing their clients' tax bills. Costs estimates for the enhancement range from $200,000 for a small, self-clearing broker-dealer to a multimillion-dollar expense for custodians, according to a participant who asked not to be identified. Systems within broker-dealers that require overhauls are the account transfer systems that interact with brokerage firms, as well as their order management systems. Historically, tracking cost basis has been a headache, a responsibility of investors who would have to dig through dusty old confirmations to determine the amount they paid for a stock or bond. For many firms, completing the fixes requires a multistep process that can frazzle the nerves of even the calmest, most experienced technologists. "This will take months just to scope out, and then you must build or buy a solution and integrate it with your current system," Mr. Cunniff said. "Then you test. Then you fix the bugs. Then you deliver." At Raymond James Financial Services of St. Petersburg, Fla., the battle to meet the deadline is under way. "We know it's a significant change and that's why we've started working on it already," said Josh Bohlander, senior manager in information technology. Hindering the project, however, are questions about how reporting should be done for wash sales, gifted securities, sales-load-basis deferral adjustments, and for fixed-income securities. "These are items not pinpointed in the current legislation," said Dale Skinner, a technology product manager with Raymond James. "We and the rest of the industry still need more clarification from the Internal Revenue Service on particular areas." Other firms are also waiting for the IRS to set a clear direction for the development effort. "We are still waiting for the IRS to make its final recommendations," said Teri Manton, a director in the product management and development group of Pershing LLC of Jersey City, N.J. Marjorie Qualey: Would like to see the IRS determine the format it wants the reports to use. "We still need to know exactly what format the IRS wants us to report it in," said Marjorie Qualey, vice president of product development and technology at Schwab Institutional in San Francisco. In response, a spokesman for the IRS said it was "continuing to work on the issue." Rather than build the upgrade themselves, some companies are retaining third parties to provide the software, an approach that OppenheimerFunds Inc. of New York pursued. "Due to the complexity of building this into our own systems, we decided that it made more sense to partner with [GainsKeeper]" to build this enhancement, said Christine Polak, vice president of operations at the mutual fund company, who declined to disclose the cost of the software. GainsKeeper, a provider of cost basis and tax software, is a division of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services in Minneapolis. Over the next two years, Ms. Polak will collaborate with the vendor to provide clients with cost basis data, in the form of their choice. Under the legislation, clients can select the way they want to report cost basis data to the IRS, such as the average cost basis or on a first-in-first-out basis. Although earlier attempts to pass the cost basis rules failed, Pershing assumed that passage was inevitable and began working on the project, Ms. Polak said. "The whole idea of these regulations isn't new to us; we are very well-positioned and have been working closely with [the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association of New York and Washington] for several years now in planning for this legislation," said Ms. Manton. So far, the firm has developed a Form 1099 tax and year-end statement that breaks out gains and losses and addresses the bulk of the regulatory requirements, she said. Some broker-dealers, such as Cambridge Investment Research Inc. of Fairfield, Iowa, and Securities America Inc. of Omaha, Neb., receive cost basis information from their custodians, Pershing and National Financial Services LLC of Boston, respectively.] (Davis Jankowski, InvestmentNews, December 14, 2008)

My son, the smartest of us three "boys", who wanted no more schooling after H.S., just retired from farming. His son is a teacher, into music, has made his own CD. Brother won't have anything to do with a computer. Actually - if I were going to write him the stuff we talk about in a 20 min. conversation on the phone - it'd take a week. And no instant feed-back. Though I send and receive emails (as far as receiving - like thousands in a month!) I don't do banking online. No one gets my credit card number online, either. Nor do I buy and sell stocks online - (actually, I hardly ever sell 'em). Actually - don't write a lot of cheques, either - giving them to strangers is a risky business, as well. Most of my business is small - and local - so I do it in cash. Haven't got held up, yet. Actually, sometimes I've hitchhiked substantial distances, in which case I have usually distributed some cash in about half a dozen locations on my body - including under an unnecessary bandage on my arm. Lived for several years in south Korea just after that devastating war when there were many desparate people around. Actually, last Saturday was the 55th anniversary of the start of that horrible war. War is hell - as the U.S. will continue to learn for a few years in Iraq. Have a great week - and summer, all. ole joyful

I know my memory is no longer capable of actually studying and taking courses. I can't evaluate your memory, Pink, but I wonder if you might be wrong about that. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I studied (and studied!) for my ham radio license a couple of years ago (at 71), and got 100% on the test. The next day my son told me I should start studying for an advanced license, so I got that too (only 96% this time). My grandmother took up French in her sixties and became the first American-born Life Member of the French Institute in NYC. I remember I wasn't allowed to ask for anything at the dinner table unless I made my request in French. Later, I appreciated the facility this gave me with French restaurant menus. :-) I'll bet there's something that appeals to you that you could enjoy learning how to do, or learning about. Most of us don't need a bachelor's degree at this point in life, but there are other learning opportunities out there. They can be so rewarding. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I joined an improv group last month. So much fun! Long ago I promised myself I would get involved with community musical theater when my kids were older. When the time came, it was impractical for me to undertake that big of a time commitment. And now I find the idea of rehearsing till 1:00 a.m. pretty daunting. So improv is perfect for me. It even involves singing once in awhile.

Timely subject. Our neighborhood just received our property tax assessments for 2016, payable in 2017. Our property taxes have gone up 45%. Our home values have not. We had a refi appraisal within the last year & our home value was less than the current property taxes, prior to this increase. A 45% increase & our taxes are already high. Illinois is number 50, of 50 states, in public pension debt. In the recent past, the federal government has given Illinois stimulus money for education. The majority of that money has NOT gone to schools & students - it has paid for pension debt. We're going to need another bailout from the states that have been fiscally responsible. Edit: We will be appealing - we do every year. The first time we used an attorney, whose fee was 50% of of the tax savings. Then we started doing it ourselves. We have the choice to appeal based on "uniformity" or "overvaluation." "Uniformity" involves collecting & submitting comps of other comparable homes. "Overvaluation" is submitting a home appraisal with a date of Jan 1, 2016 so we get tax credit for the entire year. We've had better results with the home appraisal, overvaluation method. Everyone in our neighborhood's home value has jumped up by between $200,000 - $400,000, according to the taxing authority. I'd have no problem with it if our home value had truly increased, but it hasn't.