Just ran across this article regarding new IRS Rules starting in 2011 and phasing in till 2013. It requires brokers to provide the IRS with the cost basis of first ... stocks, then mutual funds, ETF's etc.

That is going to be quite a trick. How are brokers supposed to comply? I had an account with Fidelity. I moved it to Aufhauser. Aufhauser was bought by Ameritrade. I also had an account with Charles Schwab. I rolled it over to Ameritrade when Schwab raised their fees in spite of a promise not to do that. At every step of the way, the lost track of the cost basis. Sometimes, I entered the cost basis in on-line, and these held for a while, but they disappear regularly. I also have Verizon and its spin-offs. The spin-offs are all listed as $0 cost basis. They will never be able to figure this stuff out.

I also have some shares in a company I never heard of. It was originally Retail Solutions, Inc, on Vancouver exchange. They provided software that no one ever bought to manage retail businesses. Valued on the books at $1. It is so shady that it was delisted from Vancouver exchange. It was renamed several times, and seems to have been a gold mining company. It is now Catalyst Copper Corp. I assume this is the wrong company, that the brokerage screwed up somewhere along the line. They will never figure this one out. I cannot figure it out either. But I will never be able to sell it (Pink Sheets), so I suppose I will not need its cost basis.