kcjenkins

Look at the numbers. Both parties have been taking us down the debt path for a long time. Numbers. Focus on the numbers. As you consider who to vote for up and down the ballot starting this month with early and absentee voting, keep this one thought in mind: 'Does (s)he want to raise taxes to help pay for essential services we all need and want in this country or does (s)he want to raise taxes for other reasons such as redistribution; 'fairness'; 'class warfare against the rich' or simply to be mean to taxpaying citizens?' There is a huge difference you know. 'Would you flush your hard-earned $100 Benjamin Franklin legal tender bills down the toilet every day for no good reason?' Of course not. You would have to be considered simply insane or at best, addled beyond repair. Raising taxes without completely scouring the budget and eliminating every vestige of wasteful spending first and foremost is exactly like flushing your $100 bills down the toilet. Think about it this way: What sort of convoluted thinking would ever lead you to decide to spend more of your money on an investment that was clearly losing money every day because the managers of the business were simply incompetent and not managing the money the right way, in your humble opinion? That is what Congress has done for much of the time that the Republic has stood but especially markedly so over these past 20 years and really acutely so for the past 12 years. Here's some things to think about: 1. Roughly 15-20% of all Medicare expenses are considered 'defensive' medical expenses which are essentially excessive procedures designed to do nothing for the patient's health and well-being and everything to do with protecting the doctors and hospitals from losing a major court case. Tort reform is the only way to change this. Estimated Annual Cost: Roughly $1 trillion (including state and local share cost of Medicaid; 20% savings would be close to annual $200 billion to all government levels; close to $100 billion annually to Washington alone. 2. Tens of billions of dollars in the annual defense budget are dedicated to programs that have very little to do with having the absolute best defense in the known world and much more to do with keeping constituents employed in the district or state of a powerful House or Senate defense appropriations committee chair. Watch the dissolution of the defense industry plants along the coast of Alaska now that powerful Senate Defense Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens is no longer in the Senate and has in fact, passed away. 3. At least 10% of the benefits from both of the major entitlement programs in America, Social Security and Medicare are going to wealthy retirees, hardly any of them who will have contributed more to both programs than they will ever take out of each them (unless they die before eligibility or soon thereafter) Estimated annual savings: $70 billion+ per year if reformed so that truly wealthy people provide for their own retirement, not the middle-class American taxpayer through their payroll taxes. There is $200 billion or more in savings per year right there in 3 bullet points. Given that the 'normal' level of federal tax collection in America has been around 18.5% of GDP for the past 30 years or so, that would mean that if this economy would ever respond to the economic policies of this Administration (the recent BLS job numbers for 2012 indicate that more people have left the work force than have found permanent well-paying jobs), we could expect to collect roughly $2.9 trillion in a normal year perhaps.[ According to the 2012 White House Budget figures that would represent an increase of $400 billion, up from $2.5 trillion. Coupling responsible federal budget cuts and reforms as mentioned above with a resumed 'normal' rate of growth in tax collections from a growing economy would put the US back on track towards balanced budgets and fiscal sanity in a matter of years, not decades. Holding overall rates of annual growth in the entire US federal budget to around 2% would guarantee that our budgets would be balanced in the near-term and restore faith in the world credit markets that some adults have returned to the White House and Congress. All without raising taxes by one penny on anyone. Do your own calculations and see what you come up with. CBO has millions of data points at www.cbo.gov. Use them and see for yourself. (Borrowed from Telemachus )

Salary of retired US Presidents .......$180,000 FOR LIFE Salary of House/Senate ...................$174,000 FOR LIFE This is stupid Salary of Speaker of the House ......$223,500 FOR LIFE This is really stupid Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders $193,400 FOR LIFE Ditto last line WE DIDN'T VOTE FOR THAT. THEY JUST DID IT!! Average Salary of a teacher ............... $40,065 Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN ....... $38,000 I think we've found where some cuts should be made! ____________________________________________________________ Below is a link to a simple to understand explanation of our debt crises. It is easy to see why the Politicos won't take the action needed. The real question is whether Americans as a whole will take the medicine needed. It would be a proud moment if we pulled together, sacrificed and got it done. We did so in WW II. Is there enough of that spirit left? It's our futures and our children's futures at stake. This short video (under 5 minutes) should be required viewing for EVERY citizen and EVERY legislator, current and prospective, and every high school student. It is impossible to balance the budget. Watch the video to learn why. Click on the following: Why Congress Does Not Pass a Budget_ http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EW5IdwltaAc?rel=0 By Hal Mason, retired accountant see also:http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget for the 2012 budget figures cited.

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. I'm not posting every day, but I have been reading, and appreciating, your posts.

Use it all in the earliest year, if possible. Use the 'corrected numbers from the audit if the audit has been completed.

That preparer should have retired sooner. That shows he/she did not understand what they were applying.

Think you are pulling chains here. I just doubt any employee has the ability to just void a tax court deadline.

Thank you all, I draw strength from your friendship. All the boys, and all 8 grandkids were here the last week to see him, and he recognized them and was very happy to see them. I even got that rare opportunity to get them all in one picture.

Don died tonight at 10:10 pm.

Jainen, while I want to agree with you on this one, I would have to look real hard at this one. MAS started by saying " The organization cannot accept a fee" and that, combined with the 'contribution' noted on the check means that this is a time bomb on an audit. So I'd really want to know the AMOUNT of that check before I decided. If it's a small amount I'd go your way with it, but if it is a big one, I'd have a lot of questions first. Especially I want more details about that " The organization cannot accept a fee "

Thanks, guys, I love you all too.

Should be very rare to use the 8275-R.

Thank you Tom. I'm trying to distract myself with the computer, it helps just a bit. I expect it seems strange to some for me to be on here when i am sitting next to someone I love who is dying, but there is nothing else I can do for him, except be here. And it's so hard to sit and do nothing when I want so much to do ANYTHING that could save him. Being able to talk to friends, electronically, is able to help me a little.

Well, in this case, if he never comes back, the $600 rule would let them off. But you are right to stand your ground, because you never know until the end of the year what the total may be. And the point you are making to them is that when they pay anyone for his services, whether it's under a contract or not, it's taxable income to the one receiving it, and reportable by the church. It might have been intended by the members as 'gifts', but the tax code does not allow that treatment when the 'gift' is related to his 'gift' of his time. That is the same rule that prohibits the owner of a grocery store or a car dealership, etc, to give his employees a "Christmas gift" of over $25 value, without including it in their W-2. If the church had just decided to 'gift' the man some money because he needed it, that would be part of their mission as a church. But that is not what happened.. They took up that collection for him because he came and spoke, and that is part of what he does for a living, no matter what other motives he has in his heart,

IRS Penalties: Speak Softly and Carry Form 8275 http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/irs-penalties-form-8275-64062-1.html?ET=webcpa:e6108:61496a:&st=email&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WebCPA_Daily_092512

Sorry, Steve, you are way off base on this one. He reports, as Jack said, the fire loss and the insurance proceeds, in the year of the event. Your thought was logical, but not how the tax code looks at it.

Thanks for that, Jainen. Always something to learn. Since I do few CP state returns, I missed that one.

I don't think we will be here much longer, from the look of things. But he's not in pain, and I am trying hard to accept that it's in God's hands, not mine.. Knowing you good friends are praying for me does help.

Thank you all. All my boys flew in from CA this weekend, and all the grandkids here too, so he is getting a last chance to see them, and I am getting the hugs I so badly need!

THIS NEW APP COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE, OR THE LIFE OF SOMEONE YOU LOVE, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT IT. http://www.theblaze....fting-a-finger/ PS For my friends, and I think you are all my friends, just a note to tell you that we are moving Don into Hospice today, Your prayers will be appreciated,

Since CA is a CP state. you COULD file an E on the 1040. However, I thin you'd be smart to file a 1065, just in case things change down the road.

A good example of how statistics can be manipulated to mislead can be found at http://watchdog.org/56722/blumer-blade-falsely-equalizes-dem-gop-claims-about-ohs-growth/

Just one year ago, throngs of college students took to the streets, “occupying” Wall Street and bashing capitalism. What was it that lured so many? And at those demonstrations, why did we see so many strange bedfellows finding common cause – socialists, environmentalists, pro-Palestinian activists and others? Turns out those allies are not so mismatched after all, but are rather unified by the common perception – real or not – that they are victims of three evil isms: imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. For many, that worldview was born and nurtured on our nation’s campuses. In his latest book, “The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind,” author Bruce Bawer takes to task American universities for their emphasis on Identity Studies – that is, Black Studies, “Queer Studies,” Chicano Studies, Women’s Studies – which he believes inculcate into impressionable college students the idea that those minority groups are victims of the oppressive white man. This is the ethos rampant not only in those aforementioned departments but also in the study of literature, philosophy and history. In the past, humanities instruction focused on the great works, aspired to objective truths and emphasized the importance of logical analysis. Apparently, this is no longer the case. To Bawer, the higher education system is today predicated on moral relativity. No more focus on great works, or great men. Our youth are being taught to hate capitalism and to hate America and thus so many have bought into the tenets behind Occupy Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal in its review of Bawer’s book wrote, “The most traditional branches of Western learning have been replaced by disciplines designed to serve radical political ends.” Bawer describes the American college campus today as a dystopia, a world in which student and teacher alike present an air of being profound when really they say little that is new and even less that veers from the beliefs of their peers. It’s an exclusive — and wildly expensive — club with its own jargon and belief system, its own saints and sinners. If so many of them didn’t deride faith, one might call it a religion. Besides examining numerous texts in the various “identity” fields from which he generously quotes, Bawer also attended academic conferences, including one cultural studies conference, where he observed the speakers: They’ve been trained to reduce the rich complexities and ambiguities of human life to simple formulas about oppressors and oppressed, capitalists and workers, Western imperialists and their Western victims. And when they encounter a reality that doesn’t fit into this paradigm, they don’t know how to deal with it, other than to make statements that are demonstrably untrue. Go here for the rest of this review. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/why-do-so-many-students-hate-capitalism-and-america-theblaze-speaks-to-author-of-new-book-that-criticizes-colleges-for-teaching-victimhood/

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=cWIhXzZT8dE&vq=largeS

Could there be a question you missed answering?

http://www.10taxquestions.com/index.php The 10 Tax questions The McMansion Tax Break The Inequitable Home Equity Break Poorest Families, Poorest Child Care Social Security’s Insecurity A Sick Policy on Health Insurance The Oh-So-Golden-Years Pension Break The Great Pension Robbery Higher Education Denied Medicare’s Plunge Toward Insolvency Single and Paying For It I am certain no-one will agree with all of what the author says, but it's very thought-provoking and well presented.