Month of August, 2008

A few days ago I talked about the new Housing Bill and how it relates, good and bad, to home owners. There was another a little piece that was stuck in there that has the potential to have even further ranging consequences.

Years ago, I had two contractors who were clients. The first contractor came into my office with a big box of papers. You know that shoebox you throw everything into? Well, this guy had a big moving box.

He was sure he didn’t owe any taxes because he didn’t have any money in his checking account.

I’m sitting in St. Louis as I write this. My husband and I are road-tripping for our summer vacation, exploring the wild variety of sights, tastes and sounds of the Mid-West, along with some great baseball games.

Today we tried something called “St. Louis Style” pizza. If you’re not sure what it is, check it out on Wikipedia. It wasn’t to my taste … but it does help to illustrate an interesting point.

I can’t remember ever seeing such a conflicted time in tax law. Generally, laws are passed with clear objectives. For example, the government wants to stimulate a particular segment of the economy. New laws are enacted to provide great tax breaks for that group.

2008 Depreciation Changes, Or “How to Quit Your Job This Year.” New tax breaks for businesses and depreciation allowed one of Diane’s client to quit his W-2 job. Learn how to use the new laws to your advantage in this week’s Online Workshop.

We’ve discovered a new report by the IRS, due to come out December 2008. You might remember 2 years ago when we broke the story about the IRS gearing up to audit real estate professional status. I kick myself for not sounding the alarm louder at the time. I never thought we’d end up with an Acting Chief of the IRS who used to be head of Collections. And, that it would happen at a time of a housing value meltdown. So, what are they coming after next? Read on. You may need to make some changes very quickly to avoid the next wave of the storm from the IRS.

About a month ago I blogged about Nevada’s budget crisis, and how we were looking at having a special legislative session to find enough money to finish the year. We did (although how we’re going to fund next year will still be a challenge). Now, I’m reading reports that California is facing the same problem, except on a much larger scale.

I received another email today from one of our community members under yet another IRS audit threat. In a sec, I’ll tell you about this new one. But, first I want to apologize to you.

I didn’t do something back in 2003 that I should have. On January 8, 2003, I first broke the story about the IRS beginning an offensive against real estate professionals. If you were one of the 15,000 people who received my email back then, you might remember hearing about it. (Now there are 82,000 people who are in the clientbase, so it’s grown a lot since then.)

The LA TImes is reporting that the IRS threatened revoking the tax-exempt status of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. This is because during a 2004 sermon, a church rector stated that he opposed the Vietnam and Gulf wars and that Jesus would have disapproved of the Bush Administration’s war offensive.

Have you ever wondered what kind of a house a man like Warren Buffett lives in? Friday morning, I found out, and it gave me some serious food for thought on the final leg of our road trip back to Reno.