kcjenkins

Take That Power Pole And Stick It! I was getting ready for work when I looked out the window and saw the utility company starting to erect a pole. Not only was it right in front of my new house, they were going to position it directly in front of my picture window! No way was I going to permit this! I gulped down my last bit of coffee and went directly to the crew supervisor and told him in no uncertain terms that I was not going to permit his crew to put that stupid electrical pole directly in front of my picture window. He didn't seem too impressed. He took out his map for pole locations and a right-of-way document and explained that that spot was the best location for it. I told him it is not the best location for me, and when I came home from work that day I did not want to find that pole in front of my window or there would be trouble! I told him I didn't give a hoot where he put it but not in front of my window. I felt pretty smug as I drove off to work because I felt I got my point across. I knew darn well they are afraid to put it there. Ah, the feeling of power! At least, until I got home: . . . (For the visually impaired, the photo shows a house with a power pole in front of it -- planted right in the middle of the driveway.)

Just one more, simply because I totally cracked up over this one! The Worst Ethnic Joke Ever Told As it's not politically correct to direct a joke at any particular ethnic minority, try this one: An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a southerner [but certainly not a redneck!], a New Englander, and a Californian), an Argentinian, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, a Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uraguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, a Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahamanian, a Belarusian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, a Taiwanese, an Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 47-53 Africans walk into a fine restaurant. "I'm sorry," said the snooty maître d', "but you can't come in here without a Thai."

The Problem With Social Networks "Social Networks" like Facebook are booming -- especially Facebook. There's only one problem with them: to communicate there, members pretty much have to write. How can that be a problem? After all, all of us learned to write in school, right? Well, no! And here are some real life examples. Rachel: "I'm board." Jeff: "I'm chalk, we should get together." Rachel: "BOARD! Like I don't have anything to do, not BORD, like a chalkbord. Learn to spellcheck." Jeff: "Oh god I hope you don't breed." Abigale to Darcy: "You shouldn't be aloud to talk." Darcy: "You shouldn't be allowed to spell." Post: "Never leave facebook open. Sueing _______ for defaming my character." Reply: "You did not spell 'suing' correctly and you're in law school so I think you just defamed your own character." Catrina: "Just found out the US is bombing Labia...THAT SUCKS!...I wish we didn't have to fight so much." Steven: "They should leave female anatomy alone...." Jenny: "Sweetie... We are Bombing Lybia...We would really be in trouble if we were bombing Labia. O_o OUCH" Brooks: "I do my best to keep the peace with Labia.... Beautiful scenery there...." Cory: "DONT LET YOUR EMOTIONS OVER POWER YOUR INTELIGENCE'S" Alexa: "seriously?" Cory: "ya why ?" Alexa: "overpower* intelligence*" Cory: "WUT? CUZ I DIDNT PUT SPACES . are u stupid" Poster: "when is the point when you no that you cant fail worse?" Reply: "When you realize you spelled 'know' incorrectly." And here's why this happens: Alyssa: "honer roll now with mostly a's and 1 b hopping for princapals honer roll next time :-)" Lee: "Just curious, does your school give spelling tests?" Alyssa: "nope y?" That, and: Post: "....thank you Massachusetts for making it impossible for me becoming a teacher. Stupid ass MTELs" Reply: "'For me becoming a teacher.' I suspect Massachusetts has its reasons." Poster: "for anyone to become a teacher. the tests are rediculous." Reply: "Rediculous? You sure they are not greeniculous?" Poster: "ha. =) its just a test that is suppose to test you on your reading and writing....but its over stupid topics like chocolate and mexican landmarks." Yeah. That.

I can agree that the same complex address can be written many ways, but I sill think that our government is capable of still identifying multiple returns at the same address, and then a human being can consider whether there might be enough of them to justify a simple check on the location. By the way, one of the addresses that had THOUSANDS of returns filed to it was not a complex address at all, it appeared to be a single residential address One IRS employee driving by it could have quickly established whether it was a large apt building, [although there was no apt # in the address] or whether it was a business address, etc. And there is certainly no excuse at all for not flagging returns going to prisons and such. Plus, I think you are missing the important point of the story, which is that the IRS management level was actually ordering employees to ignore questionable returns. That is the part that really is outrageous to me. There is simply no excuse for that.

My guess is that very few 'true' amateurs make it to the Olympics except in the real oddball sports. But even if they do, it would be hard to justify exempting them from SE tax when they have clearly worked long and hard to earn that prize. It's not something that 'just happened' like winning a contest where all you did was drop your name in the box or filling out a form, etc. Or being the 5000th customer, etc.

I agree 100% with John. I actually consider it a bit of a compliment that my clients are comfortable with talking to me but I do often give them a very gentle brush off if the question is complicated, telling them to let me get back to them. as for email, it;s so much easier to control the amount of time with email.

How Much is a Billion Dollars? It is difficult to visualize just how many dollars there are in $1 billion. The politicians who are spending fortunes in government money make it sound as though they are dealing in smaller numbers by removing quite a few digits. To put it in a different perspective, a billion is a thousand million. To place it in a better perspective, a billion seconds ago, it was the year1959. Humans first learned to write 252 billion seconds ago. A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it. How Much is a Trillion Dollars? A trillion dollars is even more incomprehensible. A trillion is a thousand billion. One trillion seconds equals 1,688 years. The oldest known human was alive 110 trillion seconds ago. The US National Debt at the time of this writing is http://www.usdebtclock.org/# The number is so large that the $1.75 billion this debt is increasing per day seems miniscule by comparison. So, the next time you hear a politician casually use the words "billion" or "trillion" think about whether you really want that politician spending your tax money.

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html This is a visual comparison that is one of the best I have seen. And this is the same visual method of showing the national debt. http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/usdebt.html

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/irs-employees-discouraged-identifying-fraudulent-itin-applications-tigta-63588-1.html?ET=webcpa:e5941:61496a:&st=email&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WebCPA_Daily_080912 Note that the real problem here is that some in the IRS MANAGEMENT LEVEL were [are?] actually discouraging those honest employees who were trying to actually do their job and stop fraud. And of course, the IRS response mentions not a single word about even reprimanding those supervisors, much less firing any of them. We are talking about BILLIONS here, folks, not mere millions. And for those who cal it 'stimulus', keep in mind that we are talking here just of the ITIN fraud, which means that much of those billions will be going to Mexico's economy rather than ours.

Sad to say, that does seem to be the attitude in D.C. these days.

According to the Olympic Charter, the gold and silver medals must each be made of at least 92.5 percent pure silver and the gold medal must be gilded with at least six grams of gold. The price of gold changes daily. Assuming there's six grams of gold in each medal, at 31.1 grams per troy ounce, that is about 0.2 troy ounces. With gold at $1100 per troy ounce, the value would be about $212. The remainder of the gold medal is made out of silver. The price of silver also fluctuates, but at an average of $14.50 per troy ounce, and assuming the entire medal weighs 500 grams, the remaining silver in the gold medal hovers around $230, bringing the total value to around $450. They should send 1099's, don't know if they do or not. If they do, don't know if they include the $450 or not.

I think you missed my point. The case you cite is a valid one, but does not preclude someone winning if their facts deal with the issues mentioned in that case. I think Jack has a better idea than any of us as to the validity of the t/p's claim, since he has had actual contact with the t/p. Just because it's not an easy excuse to prove does not mean that no case can be valid. For just one example, in that case you cite, the t/p had paid a tax professional to prepare his tax returns, he just did not mail them. Jack's client did not ever contact a tax professional until after being caught by the IRS, as I understand it. If he gets opinions from multiple doctors, and starts a program of treatment, for example, that could make a lot of difference. I'm not suggesting that every case is valid, but neither do I think there are no valid cases, Janien, and if Jack thinks this is one of the valid ones, he should try to help his client, don't you think?

I think that while they do tax the value of the cash award, they do not include the price of the metal in the medal. Although that is something that a smart auditor certainly would include, since the price of gold and silver has increased so much in the last few years. As for taxing the prize, why shouldn't they? Frankly, that's part of what is wrong with our tax code, too many emotional exceptions Why should a person who works hard to win a race be treated differently than someone who works hard to sell enough cars to win a bonus, for example?

If, in fact, IRS Phobia is a recognized psychological condition, then the client should consider seeing a psychologist and getting a professional evaluation. If she gets a letter from a Dr that she does, in fact suffer fro a medical condition, that is an accepted basis for forgiveness of penalties. It would certainly be worth the cost of the medical examination. http://lawyer4tax.com/tag/irs/

At least part of the information can be found on these sites – http://www.bnasoftware.com/Software_Resource_Center/Tax_Legislation_Updates/Index.asp http://na.sage.com/Sage-Fixed-Assets/state-tax-information

I think your second paragraph covers the best choice you have.

That is an excellent way to deal with it. If the contributor is not satisfied with that, he's not making a true 'donation'.

The British Medical Journal reported that exercise can add up to six years to a man's life but they warn that inactivity will kill you. That doesn't sound true at all. If inactivity could kill you the floor of the United States Senate would be covered in bodies.

Our tax dollars at work. I became confused when I heard the word 'service' used with these agencies. Internal Revenue 'Service' Postal 'Service' Telephone 'Service' Cable TV 'Service' Civil 'Service' City, Provincial & Public 'Service' Customer 'Service' This is not what I thought 'Service' meant. But today, I overheard two farmers talking, and one of them said he had hired a bull to 'service' his cows. BAM!!! It all came into focus. Now I understand what all those agencies are doing to us.

No, I'm happy to say I have not had to deal with that one. Good luck.

IF it does not qualify as Investment interest then it should be capitalized, just as the repairs are, and becomes part of his basis. Once repairs are finished, and actually on the rental market, it's deductible rental interest expense. Ditto for the taxes, btw.

Yes, he went in dressed normally, then went out the back door, jiggered it to not lock back, and got into his armor and came back in armed.

I agree with both Jainen and John, she should go to wage and hour but she should only file and pay tax on the amount she was actually paid. If she eventually does get the other amount, that will be the year she pays tax on it. And she should insist on a W-2, not a 1099, so that the employer pays the payroll taxes. Law says that they have to pay it all, whether they withheld the employee portion or not. Only fair, given the delay, that they get stuck with both halves, IMHO.

I'd just suggest that you send a personal message to Bulldog Tom. He's really sharp and he's in CA so he will be familiar with those crazy CA adjustments, Plus he's a really sweet guy who is often willing to share his knowledge.

I'd just be happy that one of the people who normally PAYS taxes gets the credit, for a change.