Friday, May 18, 2007

BLOG BUZZ

While I have been behind in my own postings, I have been checking the other tax blogs daily, and I have come across lots of interesting stuff this week in tax, finance and other blogs:

* BLUEPRINT FOR FINANCIAL PROSPERITY discusses whether you should use “Cash, Checks or Credit When Traveling Internationally”. I agree with his ranking of the different methods. During my international wanderings I have often saved even more by using a credit card - the exchange rate when the item I charged was actually processed by the credit card company was better than it was on the day of the purchase.

* Dan Meyer of TICK MARKS reminds us that the telephone tax refund is also available for Non-Profit Organizations. Click on the title of this posting on his blog to go to an article from SmartPros with more detailed information on the subject.

* AVIVA DIRECTORY covers “12 Important US Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know”, with helpful “never”, “always” and “consider” points for each of the 12 to help keep bloggers out of trouble. I learned of this article on Michelle Golden’s GOLDEN PRACTICES blog.

* The first Presidential candidate to discuss his tax policies on Kelly Phllips Erb’s TAX GIRL blog is former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, who supports repeal of the dreaded AMT.

* Brendan Moore’s AUTOSAVANT, a blog “all about cars and the car business”, goes into detail on the hybrid cars eligible for the tax credit.

* Kay Bell of DON’T MESS WITH TAXES tells how the US Tax Court recently “just said no” to a deduction for medical marijuana in her posting “Marijuana Deduction Goes Up In Smoke”. As I state in my special report DEDUCTING MEDICAL EXPENSES ON YOUR 2006 NEW JERSEY STATE INCOME TAX RETURN - “According to the Internal Revenue Code you cannot deduct expenses for an illegal activity. Under the federal Controlled Substance Act marijuana is an illegal controlled substance.”

And elsewhere on the internet:

* MarketWatch reports that the recently passed tax-cheat whistleblower law has scored some early successes.

* The IRS has released statistics related to the recent tax-filing season. More than 59 million refunds, a new record, were deposited directly into savings, checking and brokerage accounts, representing more than 61 percent of all refunds issued. Almost $158 billion has been directly deposited so far this year, an 11 percent jump over last year at this time. The average refund this year is $2,255, a 2.5 percent increase over last year at this time.

TTFN

PS - Trying to publish this post properly, with all appropriate links, has been a very frustrating pain in the ass this morning - blogger is very difficult at times! I have given up for the moment - and will come back later and try to enter the rest of the links. Sorry that the blogger system is such a POS this morning.
I give up! Here are the "missing links" -

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