Don't be Caught Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Here's a poor guy in the news that bought into a mutual fund in 1987.
He kept a stack of papers about the mutual fund milling about, the
regular type which fund houses mail, in his closet, until the closet
door burst quite off its hinges. A problem then surfaced when he
wasn't exactly sure what his cat did to the papers, of some
consequence, when he could find any hint of what someone purportedly
told him of a Cat Subcateogry 9 Provision on IRS forms, which covers
accumulative cost basis in the advent of a catastrophe; which is most
likely why he turned the whole of the ungodly mess over, into his son's
hands. His son then determined a specialized legal accountant, whose
bill for costly basis services is known as forensic accounting
analysis, would not be needed if he gave away his shares of stock,
instead of hard cash, to the Salvation Army. Smart thinking
perpetuates smart money, admittedly, though why so many people hold
onto funds, virtually forever, is a matter of some conjecture along
newsfeeds - whether the onus is to be placed on (a) the legendary Cat
Subcateogry 9 IRS Provision, or (b) people simply seem to fall natually
in love with their Mutual Fund holdings, as a matter of course, for
life. Chuck Jaffe on MarketWatch says, no matter what, these types of
fairyland scenarios siply cannot happen with present Fund House
accounting practices, nowadays, but, more importantly, what he does
caution is that investors keep in constant focus on their records for
the IRS. Thanks, Chuckie.