Spring is in the air or so I’d like to believe despite the snow that fell the other day. I realize a lot of people save their tax inspired decisions towards the end of the year, i.e. selling losers in the portfolio and making tax deductible gift to charity. I think it’s always a good time to be in giving kind of mood. This year, I’m getting around to something I’ve been meaning to do for the last couple years.



I have a few odd quantities in my portfolio as result of spin offs. Specifically A, AV, and AGR. I no longer own any of the stocks that resulted in these spinoffs. I sold HWP (Hewlett Packard who begat Agilent) a few years too early. LU or as it’s now known as ALU (Alactel Lucent), I’m personally glad to be rid for the same reasons I’m pitching here for ridding myself of A, AV, AGR. I don’t own many shares of these stocks because I piddling stake in the originals. As a result the brokerage cost of liquidating these is relatively high on a percentage basis. But the bigger pain in the ass is actually figuring out the cost basis. At this point given that I didn’t keep the best records at the time of the spinoff and purchase of the parental shares, I have no idea what the cost basis is. I could spend an afternoon figuring it out, but I’d like think I have better things to do – like playing wii. So what to do?


I’m going to donate these shares to charity. It’ll cost me nothing and I’ll get a tax write off at the value of the shares at the time of donation hence no cost basis to figure out. If you’re at all civically minded, I think donating shares is great way to get rid of these little bastards. I don’t know the process for the brokerages other than my own, but I imagine it’s similar. I just need to fill out a form and designate the charity that I wish to donate the shares to and the brokerage account for that charity. A quick google is usually sufficient to determine the latter - use “stock” instead of “shares” as “shares” seems to pull up more UK pages… If and when I’m in a position to write about setting up a donor advised fund, I’ll write about that as well – though I think that’s more than a few years away – hopefully both I and the blog will be still around then.