It Takes One To Know One

Even the AP is picking up on the hypocrisy inherent in the outrage our rulers in DC are expressing over the creative accounting in the corporate world. They even give some examples of the shell games that our rulers routinely play with the Federal budget, on a scale that dwarfs any corporation. Any corporate executive who tried any of the tricks our rulers use would be in prison for a very long time.

While this exposure is good to see, I do have serious doubts as to whether there will ever be any changes. The same crooks keep getting reelected every time.

I had high hopes for fellow MBA George W. Bush to start cleaning the DC cesspool; but these are fading fast. It seems that his solution to every problem is more agencies and bureaucracies that will just compound the problems. Giving more money & power to the same incompetents who caused the problems in the first place has historically been the DemonRats’ answer. Is Bush so concerned about not being another one-term president that he is willing to morph his administration into what an AlGore presidency would have looked like?

KMK

Dealing With Spam

Checking e-mail has become a much more time consuming process lately, with all of the viruses and spam filling in-boxes. Rather than just download our mail into our main Eudora e-mail program, we first look over the in-box contents via Mail2Web. It’s not uncommon to delete over three-quarters of the messages before even starting up Eudora.

Dave Barry has a good take on this spam influx in today’s column. While he claims that if he were to meet an actual spammer face to face, he would take him to lunch at his company’s industrial waste cafeteria, I’m not so sure I would be as polite if I ever meet one of these low-lifes. A swift kick to the groin would be an irresistible reflex reaction. In fact, I’m amazed that we haven’t had more vigilante justice to deal with these spamming scumbags. A visit to their computers with a baseball bat would do wonders for reducing the outgoing volume.

KMK

Not Tax Filing Exempt

Just because an organization is recognized by IRS as exempt from taxation doesn’t mean that no tax returns have to be filed with IRS. In fact, as this rescue unit in Alabama discovered, there are very steep IRS penalties for not filing their 990 forms. They were nailed with $57,000 of penalties for not filing since 1997.

Filing requirements do vary; but normally a 990 is required to be filed with IRS if the organization had gross receipts of more than $25,000 during the year.

KMK

Estate Tax Debate

I hope this article is true, that the issue of the estate (aka death & inheritance) tax will be a part of the campaign process before the elections this November. Let’s see if anyone has the guts to point out the true source of the estate tax.

KMK

Latest Victims

The media are wasting no time in trotting out poor helpless victims of the stock market decline. I don’t mean to seem heartless, but this is nothing new. The stock market has always had risks. Anyone who believed the Clinton lie (perpetuated by his sycophantic worshippers in the media), that the stock market would always go up, deserve the losses they are now faced with.

Stupidity should have a price such as this or else nobody will learn. The fact that some idiots put their retirement plans on the roulette wheel of speculative stocks is their fault, pure & simple.

KMK

Remembering Our Pets

One of the most complicated areas of our profession deals with estate planning. This is the one area where competent professional assistance is essential because there are so many variables to address and it is so easy to permanently screw everything up.

For those of us without any human offspring, the main issue is who to leave our worldly possessions to. If we have non-human companions (aka pets), how do we make sure that they will be cared for after we leave? While many people may ridicule this idea, I am glad to see more people taking formal legal steps to establish trusts to see that there are resources available to care for the surviving pets.

The biggest concern is with a conflict of interest with the remainder heirs, who are named to receive the remaining estate after the pet passes away. How do you protect against those heirs speeding things along?

KMK