OK. I have come to grips with the fact that Paula and I will be having to pay Uncle Sam a 4 digit sum do to an arcane IRS regulation implemented by the Obama administration as part of the punishment to those bad awful too big too fail companies and 1 per centers. This payment  stems from a spinoff/merger that Hewlett-Packard Enterprises did last year with a foreign owned entity – Micro Focus. Bottom line is we have to pay capital gains tax on the shares received. Typically, capital gains taxes are only paid when you sell. But, that is the gotcha’ in this circumstance you pay even though you haven’t sold them. Yes, the shares received are in the value of 5 digits (very low range) but in a steady downward trend since last year. So there is somewhat of a silver lining to this high finance gambit.

What I can’t come to grips with are the many folks, based on my personal conversations  and reading threads running on the HP Alumni Financial forum who are oblivious to this requirement. These folks knowingly and intentionally are not determining if they have to pay the tax or not. Me? I have spent countless hours over the last few days checking, double checking and then reviewing every which way from Sunday to ensure my numbers are valid. Their attitude is if they get caught they will pony up then and only then. Add to their head in the sand mentality is that big league brokers like Vanguard, Schwab, etc. are not wholly tuned into this requirement since HPE is the first and only corporation to be affected by this IRS regulation. I have also found out that most likely those not reporting will not get caught. So once again someone playing by the rules is penalized while the guilty nonchalantly breeze through life with the loudest voices wanting the government, i.e. taxpayers, to bail them out or have pity on their misfortunes, ignorance and poor decisions.