Year 2011 is the inaugurations of covered transactions.
Your broker knows your basis for purchases since then and reports the basis to the IRS.
purchases before that are non-covered. The broker will not report the basis to the IRS. You must supply the basis from your own records.
I' m not sure why the date isn't after Dec 31, 2010 instead of Dec 31,2011, since 2011 purchases are supposed to be covered. Perhaps I am off by one year,
