Bush Declares John Kerry a Serial Tax-Raiser – Well, duh. What else would we expect from a Socialist Senator from Taxachusetts?

Death, taxes, airline food – As usual, Dave Barry has a slightly different take on the tax law changes than we normally get from the more conventional tax experts. For example, I don’t know how I missed the following new tax credit:

If you or any of your legal dependents saw, or heard about, Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl halftime-show performance, you may claim a special one-time Traumatic Unexpected Nipple Gander Tax Credit of $250 for each eyeball that was exposed, up to a maximum of seven eyeballs per family unit for joint taxpayers filing singly.

The learning never stops in the tax game, where the rules are constantly changing.

Besides my CPA type work, pretty much the only other thing I do, and the only reason I leave my office, is to help out with our local volunteer fire department. After a recent class we took at the local college on arson investigation, Sherry has started bringing her camera along on calls. We’ve set up a mini website with some of the pictures she has taken, including several from last night’s work on a controlled burn up the road from our place. That was a strange experience for us, since we are so used to trying to put fires out and this time, we were trying to burn the place down.

Child tax credit causes 1.35 million return goofs – This exact same problem happened a few years ago, when people forgot whether or not they had received an advance refund check from IRS during the year. I had a few dozen clients where IRS jogged their memory by adjusting their tax returns to account for the fact that they had indeed already received those payments and weren’t entitled to them again with their tax returns. That kind of sloppy bookkeeping was one of the reasons we have been forcing more and more of our clients to enter everything into QuickBooks; so that we can look for those advance refund checks before preparing the tax returns and avoid the embarrassment of having IRS catch this mistake.

Web Site Shows Neighbor Campaign Donations – You can type your zipcode into this site and find out what people in your area have legally donated to the various presidential candidates. The illegal donations and laundered ones, where employers give their workers money to donate, take a little more digging to uncover.

Mental-health tax drive advances – The rulers of the PRC never tire of thinking of new ways to squeeze money out of people and giving them reasons to move to other, less hostile, states. A plan to add a new tax of one percent of gross (not taxable) income over one million dollars to fund mental health is itself bordering on insanity. Of course, it plays directly to the DemonRats’ main constituency, the “hate the rich” crowd; so it could actually have a chance of becoming law if Governor Arnold doesn’t veto it.

Bush Zeroing In On Budget Waste – We can all now say “it’s about time!”

John Kerry Votes for New Tax Hike

Bloated government, not the tax cut, is to blame for the deficit

From USA Today:

22-year-old pleads guilty in million-dollar con – As with most stories like this, it’s very difficult to come up with much sympathy for “victims” stupid enough to believe they were actually going to earn 450% returns on their money.

California Weakening – Even with Governor Arnold in power, things are not looking good for the PRC. I’ve come to the exact same conclusion when working with clients; that California would be just about the worst state in which to locate a business because of all the taxes, regulations, and litigation for everything imaginable.

House panel leaves tax cuts intact – A little sanity, recognizing that the deficit is caused by over-spending and not by tax cuts, as the DemonRats are saying.

Lying Is Job One For Leftist Economists – With the mainstream media promoting leftist causes, along with widespread economic illiteracy in this country, their lies are widely accepted as gospel.

John Kerry’s Economic Beliefs – As with all issues, he supports and opposes everything, depending on the audience he is with. He is the true poster boy for political pandering. I don’t have time to dissect the presidential campaign, but I do think it’s still too early for the Bush team to use the big guns and nuke John Kerry.

Until the DemonRats’ convention, John Kerry isn’t the official party nominee and could be replaced by someone else (Queen Hitlary) if he’s considered too unelectable. With the way he’s already imploding on himself, I have doubts that he will be worth nominating at the convention and the Bush team will have to redirect their focus.

Cutting State Government Spending (and Living to Tell About It) – Some positive news for taxpayers at the State level.

Man held in Google stock fraud – Playing the stock market is too risky for most people under normal circumstances. Paying someone for stock that doesn’t even exist is just insane.

Enough Talking about Fiscal Responsibility — Let’s Cut Spending – Another often overlooked fact – the number one cause of high taxation is government spending. Control the spending by our rulers and we all save money.

Entrepreneur’s Son Gives Government an Economics Lesson – Including the often overlooked fact that lower taxes for business owners allows them to invest more in their companies’ employees and equipment.

Congress, Please — Feel My Tax Pain – The sad reality is that every time our rulers try to simplify the tax system, they end up making it much more complicated, as I showed in my poster. My answer to this is the classic “end it, don’t mend it.”