New Rules For Investors Starting 2011

I have seen so many problems with W-2's and 1099's of all stripes over the years that I foresee this item being a nightmare of errors as it moves along. It has always amazed me that many people don't even look at the information docs for obvious errors. I'm telling anyone who will listen and most who won't not to change a thing in their recordkeeping so they can always calculate and properly report basis when then sell.

Phil Marti VITA/TCE Volunteer Clarksburg, MD

I'm amazed! You have clients that keep records? Any basis reported on a

And then you have situations such as I had where the broker didn't split TIC accounts between the decedent and the survivor. So it devolved on me to keep track of the securities lots using Quicken. The way the accounts were actively traded, there were over 2000 reportable trades for each party each year (I'll leave it to you to figure out which animal broker does things this way in taxable accounts). I also had to prepare a LOT of 1099-Bs, and because those were "late" the IRS proposed a huge penalty. Fortunately it was waived, because the lateness was because until the estate tax return audit was completed we didn't know if the transactions would be subject to 1099 reporting or not. Still dealing with the consequences five years out.