Actually, courtesy of ArizonaDog.

Bolten’s Fuzzy Math. His budget figures are misleading and suspicious. – Trying to distort the fact that Bush is wildly increasing the size and cost of government.

Trash your financial records

How the tax code rewards the soldier

Cut your taxes from cradle to grave

Taxpayer Watchdog Demands Ethics Probe of Republican Senator – Corporate executives are prosecuted when they plunder their companies. When our rulers do the same thing, it’s considered just another perk of the job. Anyone who wasn’t already wealthy before going to DC is almost guaranteed to come out stinking rich when they leave. How many more reasons do we need to see how important term limits are?

Watchdog: About 400,000 Use Tax Dodges – I have no idea how many people are using offshore accounts to hide income; and the truth is that the IRS has no idea either. Whenever I have contacted IRS personnel to ask how they calculate their estimates of the tax gap of uncollected taxes, they admit to me that they have no way of knowing any such thing with any level of certainty and their figures are just SWAGs (scientific wild ass guesses). I’m sure this 400,000 figure is nothing more than that and is intended to attract more attention (and money from Congress) than the more probable figure of something like 10,000. Luckily for the IRS, they are never required to substantiate their figures by any of our rulers or anyone in the media who just accept everything they are given as gospel.

Oops, wrong number – Be careful who you call for tax advice.

In additional to scrambling for Christmas presents this time of year, many people are also on the lookout for tax deductions. Dealers selling heavy trucks & SUVs should be swamped until New Year’s Eve as people scramble for that huge deduction.

It’s also time for my annual reminder of another less expensive year-end tax deduction — prepaying your tax preparers for next year’s work on this year’s tax returns. Sending them a check before January 1 will allow you to get the tax savings from that deduction a whole year earlier. Unless you plan on sending your preparers a huge amount (such as $100,000), it shouldn’t cause them any tax problems because that money will almost certainly go right back out for expenses on their books. Traditionally, this time of year is the leanest for income in tax prep offices, yet high in expenses as payments are required for next year’s software, forms, classes and reference materials.