Tuesday, January 29, 2008

WHAT’S THE BUZZ – TELL ME WHAT’S A HAPPENNIN’: LAST BUZZ FOR A WHILE

Since I won’t be posting this coming Saturday, below is the last “Buzz” until I return at the end of April, after the end of the tax season.
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* An editorial in the Wall Street Journal provides proof of what I have known for years – a reduction in capital gains rates will generate income. A capital gains tax rate cut is truly a tax cut that more than pays for itself!

According to the WSJ, “The tax rate fell to 15% from 20%, yet revenue collections have climbed by 152% in four years. The nearby table shows that the response by investors has been much larger than even many advocates had hoped to see.”
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* Mary Emma Allen of HOME BIZ NOTES asks some interesting questions about the upcoming rebates in her post “Will Your Business Be Affected By Tax Rebates?"
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Is this handout being considered because it’s Presidential Election Year? Is this just another way for candidates to “buy” the votes? Will those who advocate the largest handout/rebate get the most votes? Then who will figure out whom to tax or what business to tax when it comes time to pay the piper?
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* TAX PROF Paul Caron provides us with the “Tax Portions of President Bush's State of the Union Address Last Night”.
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* The TAX HELP BLOG OF Roni Deutch identifies what she considers to be “
25 Most Ridiculous Tax Write-offs of All Time”. Some of them aren’t so ridiculous, as they have been allowed by the IRS or the Tax Courts.
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Here is one that I have to look into further after the tax season is over – A woman volunteering for a large charitable cause was able to deduct the costs she paid to a babysitter while she was volunteering. Roni, if you are reading please give me the details on this deduction.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Robert,

Thank you for brining the babysitting deduction to my attention. Unfortunately my original research was incorrect and according to the IRS babysitting expenses while volunteering cannot be deducted. I have now revised the article on my site’s Tax Help Blog to reflect the update. Thank you again!

Roni Deutch

Robert D Flach said...

Roni-

Glad to be of help!

Actually, I was kind of hoping that it was deductible!

TWTP