Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Consolidation, tax season and 1099s.

As mentioned in earlier posts, instead of running multiple strategies on my own I am starting to consolidate into a Vanguard account. This will greatly simplify my taxes in the future and when I pass away it will make it easier for someone else to manage. But once you transfer the money from a brokerage, you are a bit of a persona non grata.

eTrade has been the easiest so far. We closed Kathy's account in 2016 and her credentials and two factor authentication still worked. When we logged in all we had access to was the Tax Center which was perfect, did not have to hunt for it.

Charles Schwab was a bear, but if you are willing to stay on hold, (multiple times), you can get the job done.

Motley Fool Fool Funds is impossible. I tried for an hour and there does not seem to be a way to retrieve my 1099. I just wrote Vanguard for help. I would suggest staying as far away from that operation as possible.