Think Small: Getting Started As a Real-Estate Investor  – Some good tips from the free WSJ.

Although we have made good progress getting clients to use QuickBooks, it still amazes me how many of them persist in writing their checks by hand, missing out on the biggest time saving feature of using QuickBooks.

Hand-writing checks takes at least three times as much overall time as letting QB do them. You have to write out the check; then you write the check info in the check register and on the bill or invoice you paid. You then sometimes need to write the payee’s address on an envelope. After that’s all done, you still need to enter all of the check detail into QB in order to account for it.

Using QB to print checks, all you have to do is enter the info into the program once and it is posted to its proper account. The check has the payee’s address, to use with a window envelope, as well as a stub that can be stapled to the invoice for your records.

I have yet to meet a single person who has experienced the convenience and time savings of using QB to print out checks who would even consider going back to the old fashioned hand-writing method.

Corporations vs. LLCs – A look at the basics from Nolo Press.  Not intended to substitute for the expertise of a professional tax advisor.

I just received an email from the CPE provider ClientWhys announcing that they are offering a free download of their course materials on tax law changes affecting 2006 and later years.  I downloaded it and checked it out. It’s a 39 page pdf file, including their test questions; but it is a handy concise reference of newly effective changes.  

Here is a link to the historical table of the bottom and top federal income tax rates from 1913 through 2000, as discussed on today’s Rush Limbaugh show.  Interesting to see that the original top rate (7%) is lower than today’s bottom rate (10%).

Q:

Subject: Pregnancy and Section 121

Dear Kerry,
 I was just wondering if you had posted any opinion about the decision of the IRS to treat Pregnancy as “Unforeseen Circumstance,” Permitting Exclusion of Gain on Sale of Home Owned Less than Two Years Under § 121. I would be interested in reading your opinion on-line or on your blog. Please let me know where / when you post.

Thanks,

A:

I didn’t comment on that particular ruling because it was covered in several other tax blogs, as well as the fact that it was not in the least unexpected.  I don’t have time to search for the postings, but I can recall having posted at least a few Q & As where I had advised that a pregnancy would qualify a homeowner to use the pro-rated tax free exclusion. 

You have a good point that in these rare occasions when IRS actually demonstrates uncharacteristic common sense, it is something to be pointed out. 

This ruling does also add a new strategy to the tax saving repertoire that desperate people may decide to use; intentional pregnancies to justify selling a home before the two year time period.  That would be interesting to see an IRS auditor accuse a taxpayer of “tax motivated baby making.”

Thanks for writing.

Kerry Kerstetter