[ghaff]

>- stock sales (your broker may not know your basis)

This used to be a real nightmare especially when there were acquisitions in stock, splits, etc. There were a couple times over the years when I just said F' it and put down a reasonable number.

But these days, unless you have some pretty old investments, the brokerages generally track your basis.

[runako]

> the brokerages generally track your basis.

Yes, but IIRC if you transfer investments between brokers you are back to tracking basis yourself (if you're lucky, the new broker will allow you to enter the basis after the transfer).

But agree in the general case that it's not a problem for younger people. (Gen X and older may indeed have some of those pretty old investments lurking in their portfolios.)

[ghaff]

That's not universally the case at least. I transferred some shares a month or so ago (in a horribly manual process I might add) and the cost basis was transferred over.

I fall into the older bucket but I guess my old 401(K) must have had basis added when it merged with an IRA and none of my other investments lack basis information.