joyfulchristian

And now, an important announcement

I'm engaged!

Woo-hoo!

Her name is Nicki and the wedding is set for June 11, 2005.  She lives in New Mexico so at least one of us is going to end up moving, but we don't have that part figured out yet.

She's in town the rest of the week so you probably still won't be hearing much from me.  Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  Happy New Year!

You are entering a low-pondering zone

For the next couple of weeks I'm going to be spending time with someone special, or on the road.  Or both.  I have no idea how much I'll be blogging during that time.  My travels will end January 2nd.  If it hasn't already, blogging should return to normal shortly after that.

Does anyone know anything about this?

Attention SarahK: This is politics, not accounting; however it's borderline, so you might want to skip it.

This is somewhat disturbing (subscriptions site):

On December 15, Congressmen Robert Matsui (D-CA) and John Spratt (D-SC) took aim at presidential efforts to reform Social Security by highlighting a lesser-known item in most reform proposals called the “Claw Back” provision. Under this measure if a taxpayer’s private account reaps more than a 2 percent rate of return over what would have been achieved in the current system the government confiscates the extra money.

“You’re not going to get wealthy from these accounts,” said Matsui. “It’s called a claw back provision.”

Republican sources contend that the provision will not be a part of any reform plan put forward. The reason why the Democratic congressmen raised the point today was because the measure is a part of the proposal President Bush now alludes to. Most comments of his on reform stem from the second of three options included in a report authored by a Social Security reform commission in 2001. (Emphasis added.)

Is this really in there?  Are they really batting around a privatization plan where the government confiscates the money if you do well?  What on earth is the point of privatization if you don't get to enjoy the benefits of your investment?

I haven't had a chance to investigate this, but it certainly sounds like something to be watching out for.

A friendly reminder

*** Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Accounting lingo ahead! ***

Now here this: When you get a letter from the IRS¹, do NOT ignore it.  Take it to your tax adviser immediately!  Do not pass go! Do not collect $200.

This is especially true if they're asking for money or tell you they changed your return.

¹This goes for letters from state tax authorities as well.

Sad. Just sad.

So I was passing a elementary school yesterday and noticed that the marquis read, "Elementry school program tonight."  On occasion, I positively weep for the future.

Would someone please tell me ...

... how you "accidentally" arrange flowers in the shape of a swastika?

<blockquote>A FLORAL foul-up has left a city street lined with swastika shapes in a week of major Jewish celebrations.

Gardeners hired by Melbourne City Council intended to arrange the purple and white pot plants into neat geometric shapes.

But they left six 3m garden beds along Swanston St displaying large Nazi symbols. </blockquote>

I'd really like to know how this can be explained as a accident. 

Something else caught my eye as well:

<blockquote>

Holocaust Museum president Shmuel Rosenkranz described the flower fiasco as offensive to most Melburnians.

"Any swastika anywhere would be of offence to anybody who lived through the Hitler era," he said. </blockquote>

If only that were true!

More Babylon 5 stuff

Sakai: Ambassodor! Ambassodor G'Kar!

G'Kar: Ah, Ms. Sakai, I'm pleased to see that you returned safely from your expedition.

Sakai: Yes, thanks to you.  Just one question, Why?

G'Kar: Why not?

Sakai: It's not an answer.

G'Kar: Oh, yes, it is.  It's simply not an answer you like or the answer you expected.  There's a difference.  Narns, humans, Centauri, we all do what we  for the same reason ... because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

This is how I think

*** Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Accounting lingo ahead! ***

So I was reading the settlement terms between Esquire and WFB when I found this:

1. Payments by Hearst. Within 15 days of the execution of this Settlement Agreement by Mr. Buckley, Hearst will pay the sum of $55,000 to Mr. Buckley's counsel, Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, and will pay the sum of $10,000 to Mr. Buckley.

My first thought was, "Buckley's going to pay more in taxes than he's getting from the settlement."

I won't bore you with the details of why this is so, but trust me, it's messy.

Marriage based on genetics

I don't know why, but this Eugene Volokh post is very interesting to me:

Selecting for Intelligence as Causing Societal Inequality:I don't intend to blog much more on this, but since a bunch of people raised this point, let me speak to it. The argument (buttressed sometimes by citations to the movie Gattaca) is that rich people will improve their kids' genes, which will increase social stratification, as descendants of the poorer people will find it harder to compete. I profoundly disagree with this argument.

1. If you take this seriously, it would be largely an argument against private education (and I've heard the argument made this way), since of course private education lets rich parents improve their kids' competitiveness relative to poor kids. You might even be upset when smart people marry other smart people.

Would you support "breeding for equality," in which smart people self-consciously try to marry dumb people, so their kids wouldn't have too much of an unfair advantage? Or how about programs that try to persuade smart men that the feminine ideal should indeed be the dumb airhead woman (and, of course, to persuade smart women that they should marry dumb men)? Yes, I realize that there's potentially a significant difference in degree between the IQ benefits to be gained by genetic engineering and the IQ benefits to be gained by lay genetics (i.e., smart people marrying smart people) or education. But I stress the "potentially," and in any event the principle strikes me as quite similar.

Just keep reading.

I think I'm going to sue Nebraska

... for letting their weather out of the barn. It's stinking COLD here this morning.

As sure as death

Life is a terminal disease. It has a 100% fatality rate. Almost as certain as that is the fact that when the government installs a "temporary" tax or tax increase the tax itself will far outlive it's purpose. Even so, this one is a doozy, even for the federal government:

Belleville News-Democrat via NewsEdge Corporation : Dec. 13--A tax on retailers selling alcohol that was created to fund the war effort -- for the Civil War -- has been suspended temporarily.

I knew this kind of thing happened a lot, but even I was surprised to find out that we're still assessing taxes to fund the Civil War. (Yes, I was born and raised in the South, but I'm not going to call it "The War Between the States" or "The War of Norther Agresssion.")

Good grief!

This is rich:

WASHINGTON Usually, an election victory improves a politician's popularity. But polling numbers overseas show President Bush is disliked and his re-election was a significant disappointment to most Europeans.

An A-P survey shows that Bush is viewed negatively by a majority of people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and even among respondents in the closely-allied countries of Australia, Britain and Canada.

Those numbers are particularly high in France, Germany and Spain, where the poll indicates 70 percent of people don't like Bush.

Europeans don't like Bush. This is news because ... why exactly? The other question is, "Why should I care?" And the answer is that given Europe's track record of late, I figure that the more they hate Bush, the more likely it is that he's doing something right.

But, if we're talking about polls, let's point out that Bush's job approval rating appears to be up about 3 points since the election. (I'm not, however, sure what the margin of error on those numbers is.)

Sorry about the lack of free ice cream

Wednesday and Thursday I had CPE in Tulsa. By the time I got home I was beat. Between that and spending enormous amounts of time on the phone I just haven't had time. I'd blog now, but I don't seem to have anything to say.

Normal blogging will continue as soon as I can figure out what exactly normal is.

Not sure how to best handle this

For some reason, the kids next door seem to think that the way to resolve every conflict is to throw something into my back yard. Today I came home to find an enormously cute teddy bear in my dogs mouth. (She looked quite proud of herself.) This has been going on for a REALLY long time. On a couple of occassions I've heard their parents scold them for this behavior, but it doesn't seem that whatever they're doing is working.

I don't know what the best way to handle this is, but it's really starting to annoy me. It's not a big deal the first couple of times, but the thirteenth time or so, is something else. My inclination is to just start a collection and hold on to the stuff until their PARENTS come for it. I really don't know though. I don't want to be a jerk about it, but something's got to change.

How did this happen?

I've been pulled out of line at the airport for my pocket knife. I've seen the bags of 3 year olds searched at the Smithsonian. So how on earth did this guy get a knife into the Department of Agriculture?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal employee was stabbed Tuesday inside the U.S. Agriculture Department in downtown Washington, a department spokesman said, in what seemed to have been a dispute between acquaintances.

The employee was stabbed with a knife in the USDA's South building, a sprawling block-long building across the street from the USDA administration building on the National Mall, USDA spokesman Ed Loyd said.

Ummm ... I'm not exactly impressed. Fortunately the injured employee doesn't seem to be great danger, but there's no way this should have been possible.

I have an announcement

I have lost my mind.

That is all.

Yeah, THAT makes sense!

(I promise, this is not an accounting thing. It's a software thing. But, if you decide it IS an accounting thing, then consider this your warning.)

True genius at work. The very first thing the "Early Release Instructions" tell you how to do is how to find the "Early Release Instructions." Thanks a lot guys. I kinda figured that one out on my own.

Kids accidentally hit your vehicle with a golf ball. What should you do?

Not this:

Isiah Grayer, 14, and his 16-year-old twin stepbrothers, Justin and Jamel Marshman, were bouncing the golf ball in a shopping center parking lot Sunday afternoon when it went astray and struck a sport utility vehicle driven by Kathy Feaganes Allen, 47, St. Johns County sheriff's Deputy Greg Suchy said.

Suchy said no damage was done, and the boys apologized and began to walk away. Allen started to drive away, but suddenly made a U-turn, ran over a median and struck Grayer, causing severe injuries, and Justin Marshman before knocking over a light pole, Suchy said.

She then drove after Jamel Marshman, crossing two medians and striking a utility box before her SUV stopped in a ditch, Suchy said. The boy ran away and was not struck.

Witness Russell McPhee said Allen accelerated to hit the boys.

"She charged them," he said. "This was the most deliberate act."

As far as I'm concerned, she should spend the rest of her natural life in prison. Courts sometimes talk of events that "shock the conscience." This certainly seems to fall into that category.

A note to anyone planning on starting a business

*** Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Accounting lingo ahead! ***

You really should find out when your payroll taxes are due. Then, and this is the tough part, you should pay what you owe by the deadline!

I'm just saying.

P.S. You should also file the payroll tax reports when they're due.

Metaphysical observation

As concepts go, I could do without time and distance. Especially distance. Oh, how I loathe it.

Does anyone know ...

... where I could get a Windows XP emulator for Windows 98? I've got a program that refuses to load as soon as it detects that you're running 98. If I could find an emulator that would help a lot.

Thankfully we're about to get rid of the Colin cancer

There are many reasons I'm glad that Colin Powell is stepping down as Secretary of State. Unsurprisingly, I now have a new one:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell called Kofi Annan a "good" U.N. secretary-general on Friday, after days in which Washington chose not to defend the diplomat against a U.S. senator's demand he resign.

It was unclear whether Powell's comments signaled genuine support for Annan, under fire over suspected corruption in the U.N.'s now-defunct Iraq oil-for-food humanitarian program, or simply aimed to soften the widespread impression Washington has no great desire to back the U.N. chief.

"Secretary-General Annan is a good secretary-general," Powell told Reuters in the first positive comment about Annan from a top U.S. official since Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican investigating the program, said he should resign because of the suspected oil-for-food abuses.

Powell must be using some new definition of "good" that I was not previously aware of. I can't think of a single thing Kofi Annan has done that I would call good. He's not only been negligent (to be charitable) and biased. In issue after issue he has been a stumbling block to sane approaches to international relations.

I get so tired of hearing Powell praise the incompetent and the crooked. It's long past time for him to go. I just hope that Condi doesn't get sucked in to the moral black hole at the State Department like so many before her have done.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: If, by some nightmare scenario, I became President, two of my major goals would be the complete stripping down and rebuilding of the State Department and the IRS. There's no fixing them; it's time to start over from scratch.

Update: In the comments Joel Thomas objects to the title of his post.

I don't think making fun of a person's name in the fashion of "Colin cancer" is a particularly Christian thing to write. I believe that Christians are called to a higher standard.

I had no intention of making fun of Powell's name in this post. I don't believe that the very act of making a play on words using someoene's name constitutes "making fun" of their name. There was, for instance, no intent to mock Powell or his name.

The title of this post was chosen because I believe that "cancerous" is a pretty good description of how Powell's approach to foreign policy has affected our national security.

All that being said, Joel is right that Christians are held to a higher standard. The tone of this post is not at all what I'd intended. In retrospect it comes off as bitter and mean-spirited. That's not what I'd intended, but that's certainly how it came out. I have no other excuse than having been in a bad mood when I wrote it.

It's posts like these that are the most tempting to simply delete. I don't regret any of the points made here, but I certainly regret the way I wrote them. All temptations aside though, I dislike whitewashing history. I think I'll leave it up as a reminder that some times I should probably count to 100 or otherwise calm myself down before writing on subjects that infuriate me.

Note to self

Must. Start. Getting. To. Sleep. Before. One.

In related news, the razor works better if the blade has the correct orientation. (Yes, I really did put the blade on my razor upside down yesterday.)

That's odd

Patrick Rufinni blasts conservatives who he thinks are obsessed with minimizing the importance of the hispanic vote in Bush's victory. Interestingly, this is the first time I've heard about this controversy.

Just my two cents

I've said much the same thing before, and it will never happen, but I'll repeat myself. Joe Lieberman is one of the most sensible Democrats around on the subjects of defense, terrorism, and international relationships; I really wish Bush would offer him a cabinet position.

And another thing!

*** Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  Accounting lingo ahead! ***

Oops! False alarm.

Closer to home than before

While she was in high school my sister had a close friend named Matt. She's always insisted that they were just friends even though she spent more time with him than most of his girlfriends did. And in fact, other than the enormous amount of time they spent doing stuff together and talking on the phone, I never had any reason to think otherwise. Not that it wasn't fun to tease her about it.

Anyway, a couple of years ago Matt joined the Marine reserves. A while back he got called up for active duty, but he wasn't up long and it wasn't terribly hazardous stuff. About 3 months or so ago he got notice that he was being called up again. This time they told him he was going to Iraq. For a few weeks my sister got occasional phone calls from him. (In the middle of the night because he couldn't remember what the time difference was. Well, actually, he's always had a tendency to call her at 3 in the morning so it might not be the time difference after all.)

A few weeks ago his unit got hit with a phone blackout. A couple weeks after that she got a letter from him that was postmarked "Camp Fallujah." By the time she got the letter, the Fallujah campaign had started in earnest. Naturally she was pretty worried. Just before Thanksgiving she got a call from him. He was fine, though things were understandably hectic.

This puts the war in a slightly different light for me. I've know several people who have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, but most of them weren't very close to me. I've also known people with close relatives there. However, this is the first instance I know of that included someone close to my family in the middle of a major combat zone. None of that changes any of my convictions about the necessity of the war. It does, however, bring the personal impact of the war home in a more direct fashion. It reminds me that even when an absolute necessity, war is one of the greatest evidences of the fallen nature of mankind that we are ever likely to see.

Now hear this!

*** Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  Accounting lingo ahead! ***

I just wanted to clear something up here. No matter what your hunting buddy, golfing friend, mom, dad, second cousin twice-removed, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker may tell you, the simple act of setting up corporation/trust/LLC does not magically transform non-deductible personal expenses into deductible expenses. If someone tells you that it will they either don't know what they're talking about or they're trying to sell you hinky tax planning services. If someone tries to sell you something like this, DON'T BUY IT! Whatever they're selling is very likely to land them in Leavenworth. If you buy it, you risk the possibility of sharing a cell with them.

And another thing, there are no secret provisions of the tax code that say that you only have to pay taxes on foreign income or that only foreigners have to pay income tax or that "gains" are taxable but "earnings" aren't. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, see above.

Folks, people selling these schemes wind up in prison on a regular basis. The courts have gotten so tired of hearing these idiotic schemes that they generally don't even deign to discuss the issue any more. They generally just say something like, "The taxpayer advanced many tax protestor arguments, all of which are known to be without merit," and move on.

Side note: Yes, you're probably going to see a lot more posts like this as I start winding up for tax season. These posts are a combination of a) utter frustration and b) the desire to keep as many people out of trouble as possible.

Update: I talked to a friend who's a school teacher. She said several teahcers in her district are serving 6 month prison sentences for tax evasion thanks to buying in to some of these "you don't have to pay tax" shysters. Remember: Having to pay taxes is bad, but Leavenworth is worse.

Contributions of vehicles

Update:  Someone complained that when I blog about accounting it interferes with her attempt to escape from CPA land.  So, in the future (Well, assuming I remember. If I forget someone please remind me.) posts about accounting or taxation will be proceeded by:

*** Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  Accounting lingo ahead! ***

I hope that will be satisfactory.  Now on to the post.

One of the common fundraising techniques for charitable organizations lately has been to ask people to contribute vehicles to the charity which the charity could then sell.  This was advantageous for taxpayers because generally they could deduct the contribution based on the "fair market value" of the vehicle. (This is often determined by looking up the blue book value.  That's something that's quite easy to do by using Kelly Blue Book online.)  This value could be used, even if it was significantly higher than the amount the charity eventually received on the sale.

Unfortunately, many people unkowingly made contributions to fraudulent organizations or were scammed by 3rd party promoters into making the contributions in a way that was not actually tax deductible.

The IRS has been very concerned about this and has announced new rules for 2005.

Under the new rules that go into effect in 2005, if the claimed value of a donated motor vehicle, boat or plane exceeds $500, and the item is sold by the charity, the taxpayer's deduction is limited to the gross proceeds from the sale. The charity must provide an acknowledgment to the donor stating the amount of the gross proceeds within 30 days of the sale. Also, under the new rules, the charity must provide an acknowledgment to the donor within 30 days of the contribution if the charity will significantly use or materially improve the motor vehicle. In that case, the donor generally may deduct the market value of the vehicle.

Taxpayers who will be donating a motor vehicle to charity by December 31, 2004, may still be able to deduct the fair market value of the vehicle under the current rules. However, taxpayers need to remember a number of existing requirements that must be met in order to qualify for a deduction for 2004. First, taxpayers should check that they are donating the car to an eligible organization. Donations to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and governments are generally tax deductible. Other eligible charities are be listed in IRS Publication 78, which is available in many public libraries and on the IRS website at www.irs.gov.

In addition, the IRS is reminding taxpayers who donate a car to an eligible organization that they will benefit from a charitable deduction only if they itemize their deductions. Thus, the taxpayer's total itemized deductions need to be greater than the taxpayer's standard deduction for 2004 ($9,700 for married taxpayers filing joint returns and $4,850 for single filers).

The three major things to remember from all this is that if you want to deduct a vehicle this year make sure you have plenty of documentation, starting next year, for any vehicle deductions over $500 you must have a receipt stating the value that is deductible, and finally if the charity is going to sell the vehicle immediately you cannot, under any circumstances, deduct an amount greater than the charity received at the sale.