Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

The door bell, rings, and a man answers it.

Here stands this plain but well dressed kid, saying, “Trick or Treat!”

The man asks the kids what he’s dressed up like for Halloween.

The kid says, “I’m an IRS agent.”

Then he takes 28% of the man’s candy, leaves, and doesn’t say Thank You.

Is this like that saying, “if you love something, set it free?”

Bill would drop excise charge on clunkers – Interesting potential tax break for Massachusetts owners of vehicles worth less than $5,000.

Property taxes leap in Mass. as state aid falls

Fake $20s Showing Up In Massachusetts – So much for the theory that the new colored note would discourage counterfeiters.

Tax plan may beget Net effect. Congress ponders ways to collect online sales levy

Tax Laws Protect Illegal Workers – IRS and our rulers in DC care more about the tax money from illegals than in enforcing immigration laws. Terror cells with illegal aliens are free to operate around the country as long as they keep sending their payroll taxes to IRS. There’s definitely something wrong with that picture.

Battle Brews Over Expiration of Internet Tax Moratorium – Mark Belling, substituting for Rush Limbaugh today, spent an impressive amount of time discussing what a nightmare it will be if the ban on Internet taxation isn’t renewed in a few days. He mentioned how the long running urban myth of a five cents per email tax could very easily become a reality if our rulers in DC don’t get with it and make the ban permanent.

Some machines turn up noses at new $20 bill

The DemonRats’ tax cut gamble

Oakland cell phone users may get tax hike – Maybe those people should change their ring tones to George Harrison’s “TaxMan” song so they can be reminded that they will be paying an extra 7.5% to Jerry Brown’s city government on each call.

Americans for Tax Reform pushes for last minute vote to save Internet tax moratorium

Simplify tax system. Complex tax code, not individuals, needs to be targeted.

Raising taxes – Bruce Bartlett thinks the trend of Bush tax cuts has bottomed out and that tax increases will be coming soon from the Bush team.

Support Making the Internet Tax Moratorium Permanent!

I just received announcements from IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board that they are giving the victims of the fires in Southern California a break from any tax notices and filing requirements. As I always tell clients who are having personal crises, tax matters should be very very low on the list of things they worry about. For people who have lost everything in the fires, I doubt that the two week reprieve FTB is giving will be anywhere close to enough time to get back to even caring about taxes. It will also be tough for IRS and FTB to send notices to homes that no longer exist.

IRS Announcement

FTB Announcement

Lieberman’s Secret Tax Hike – As if we need another example of how the JackAss Party has gone over the cliff of insanity. Lieberman’s the most conservative of the DemonRats and he sounds like a rabid Marxist in his calls to persecute the evil rich.

Mike To Biz: Drop Dead – The RINO mayor of NYC hasn’t finished his financial rape of businesses.

Tax issue angers parents – What nerve! Parents who receive special tax breaks have to prove their qualification for those breaks.

California’s ‘circus’ hurts recall efforts n Nevada – I thought everybody loves circuses. Heck, Las Vegas is just a big circus for adults.

GOP Puts Stock In ‘Investor Class’

Tax-Cut Plan to Aid Ailing Industries

DNC fat cats: Taxpayers pick up tab for Dem honchos’ $alaries – Isn’t America great? There are so many opportunities to feed from the taxpayers’ trough.

Gov.-elect Arnold committed to avoiding tax hikes – As I mentioned during the campaign, Arnold’s hesitation to sign the “No Tax” pledge because of the possibility of a huge disaster, was bogus. Even the lame duck governor didn’t call for new taxes today during discussions of the fire storm in SoCal. He acknowledged that costs for dealing with something that large are going to be picked up by the Federal taxpayers via FEMA.

Schwarzenegger’s adviser hits the books – I don’t envy her that task. The only thing worse would be trying to decipher the Federal government’s accounting.

Ohioans may revolt against higher taxes and spending. – More on the efforts in Ohio to slap down the governor’s recent tax hike.

Tax Troubles: How Did We Get In This Fix? – There are a number of tax reform options on the table for the voters in Maine. There is a lot of coverage of the various issues at the Portland Press Herald’s website.

Senate to ponder permanent Net access tax ban – This debate seems to be going on forever. Obviously the states hate the idea of the Feds telling them what they can and can’t tax.

QuickBooks 2004

I find it amusing every year when people, including professional accountants, wonder if there will be a new version of QuickBooks each year. The answer is “duh.” Does General Motors ever skip a year when remodeling their cars? Neither does Intuit for Quicken or QuickBooks A new version is released every year.

The changes from year to year aren’t usually that dramatic; so not everyone needs to buy the new version each year. However, it is a wise move to upgrade every two or three years. That’s when you will notice the big improvements over the version you had been using. Intuit has its own way of encouraging users to upgrade their software. They orphan any version more than three years old, not providing any more support for them.

The variety of different versions of QuickBooks available with the 2004 upgrade gets even more confusing than ever. However, for at least 95% of the people we have been working with, the least expensive Basic version is just fine. Very few people need the functions available in the more expensive versions. I haven’t ever used many of them, and I spend a lot of time doing a lot of things with QuickBooks. Anyone considering upgrading from an older version of QuickBooks or buying it for the first time should hold off for a few more weeks. It doesn’t make much sense to buy the 2003 version now, when the 2004 version will be available on November 10.