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A blessed, happy, and healthy year in 2023 to everyone here!

Happy New Year to everyone! May it be prosperous & healthy.

So I just finished the self study course. Got 78.57% so I passed. Nothing like doing it at the last minute!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Live long and prosper.

Happy, Healthy New Year!

And the wait for parts can be a lot longer too.

Yesterday, I received my IRS Annual Filing Season Program Certificate of Completion from the PTIN Website. We are already set to start and ready to go.

Nebraska has 80 required every two years. I already have 52 for the first year of this term. I am apparently a slow learner and need more classes for stuff to sink in and they keep changing too much crap for me.

65.5 cents per mile driven for business use, up 3 cents from the midyear increase setting the rate for the second half of 2022. 22 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes for qualified active-duty members of the Armed Forces, consistent with the increased midyear rate set for the second half of 2022. 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations; the rate is set by statute and remains unchanged from 2022. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2023-business-use-increases-3-cents-per-mile

It only matters on the year that your license ends. Two days ago, while renewing my PTIN, I saw that I have to renew my license in March 2023, which I completely forgot. I panicked because this year I had only 18 credits. In my head, I said... "I am short if every year I have don't the minimum requirement". Luckily, on that website they have my CPE credits and I had a lot in one year so I had exactly 72 credits. I am happy you noticed it now because 48 hours later, it would be too late. Everybody, please double check if your license expires in March, so you still have time to pass the CPE exams.

It's interesting how the IRS trails the changes in gas prices. I remember paying $5.65 per gallon in the second week of June. Today I paid $3.79 per gallon. On the other hand, Auto Insurance Premiums are rising and the cost of auto repairs have really gone up!

In early November, I figured how much CPE I needed for the year. And proceeded to get that much CPE. But when renewing my license…I’m 14 hours short. Can I no longer subtract? Should I be doing taxes? so anyways, I’m working on completing a self study course by tomorrow. I hate self study because I’m a great procrastinator. Oh well, back to the grind…

My prediction is Friday, January 27th.

Oregon requires 30 Hours every year with an annual renewal . Oregon doesn't allow carryover hours so it easy to add up your hours. Oregon License renews on May 31st so I end up doing about half of my hours in May.

Nevada has a rolling 2 year calendar year certification. I actually noticed it 2 days ago and have been working on the course I found. But I can only do so much before my brain explodes.

After an hour on hold this morning, I was able to speak to a live body. They had a system upgrade and my email address was no longer compatible. I guess only one "." is allowed and mine was nycap.rr.com Changed to my gmail account and immediately received the authentication code!

It's sad how horrific the IRS is at technology. Is it the "too many chefs in the kitchen" problem or too many people not wanting to actually take responsibility so they all require too many chefs so that no single person can be blamed?

Years ago one of China's leaders stated that the US had gotten away from "making things" to pushing paper around. China's leadership, for all it flaws, is noted for its no-nonsense, see-things-as-they-are approach, so it made me think. So much wealth in this country is derived from stock options, swaps, derivatives, stock shorting, straddles, and now NFTs and cryptocurrency. How does any of that improve anyone's life, except for those on the winning end of those trades? Most of us have clients with brokerage statements that are dozens of pages of buys, sells, buys, sell, buy again, margins. All this paper amounts to nothing productive. Maybe China had a point. Note that the country has banned crypto.

One blogger stated at some point that if you cannot stand in front of it and defend it, it's not real and/or not yours. She had (still has) a point.

Options and Derivatives are legally binding contracts. Repos, reverse repos, swaps, commodity futures.... There are a lot of really smart people out there.

Well, I think there are differences. Stock options grant a "right" to the holder to purchase something that is real... a specified stock that has ownership value based on the company that issued the stock. Derivatives are similar to a exata bet on a horse race... if the horses come in as you predicted, you get paid. If the prices of the derivative move as you predicted they would you get paid. NFTs are identifiable computer works. The first one was a "painting" of sorts created in a computer. Someone created something that is "signed and numbered" and verifiable through the blockchain recording system. No different than a numbered lithograph. Coins - I am still not sure what they are. Not trying to be combative, just sharing how I am thinking when I try and bring these concepts down to my level of comprehension. Tom Longview, TX

I don't see any difference between Crypto, Non Fungible Tokens, Stock Options or Derivatives., You can't see, smell, touch or hold them. They are all numbers in a computer somewhere

Tracy Alloway (Bloomberg and the Odd Lots Podcast which is AMAZING) made a really good comparison of crypto with Beanie Baby dolls. Beanie Babies had someone who distributed / sold a price sheet that everyone used to price them as if it was their real value. Prices just kept going up and nobody really questioned it because it was on the list. If someone said that Beanie Baby wasn't worth $30, they could point to the list. Crypto had a price list but turned out it was all manipulated just as much as the Beanie Baby list. FTX was buying on one board and selling on another to themselves at higher and higher prices to justify getting more and more loans on their worthless asset. They bid a coin they owned almost all of up to over $50 each (total value of $9.6b) and now it's priced at $.87 ($300m) and has a value of $0. Warren Buffet said that if you owned all of the Bitcoin in the world and offered them to him for a total price of $25 he'd decline.

I don't know what it is. I think I have a handle on what a NFT is, but the "coins" are not something I can't get behind yet. Maybe someday, but right now I am not there. The IRS seems to say it is "property of some kind", and they have some rules on how to handle transactions involving virtual stuff, so I am going to follow that. Tom Longview, TX