Bush Tax Cuts Ending January 1st!

The craziest thing that I have witnessed since working full-time doing lots of income tax returns (30 years) is the way the G W Bush tax cuts that came in about nine years ago have a built-in expiration on 1/1/11. Not only does it scare me that the writers of our laws might be into Numerology, and no, those laws are NOT written by our elected officials, but the difficulty of planning when tax laws expire can be kind of scary too!
Reagan's tax cuts came in and got altered, but they did not have an expiration date like the Dubya cuts do.

Almost all tax brackets are rising in 2011. The 10% bracket will be 15%, 25% goes to 28%, up to the top 35% going to 39.6%. Capital gains rates currently 0% and 15% jump back up to 10% and 20%.

Death taxes, which are technically gone for 2010, go wayyyy back up in 2011 for persons with over $1 million is net assets. I am not recommending suicide, but some families might be hit hard by the new, not kindler gentler inheritance tax rates starting with those dying in 2011.

Some planning for this bump in rates can be done. If you know you will be selling a capital asset at a large gain, generating that gain in 2010 could save tax over the same gain in January 2011.

Credits help tax bottom lines so much, but some good ones are going down. The child tax credit, now worth $1,000 per child under 17, goes down to $500. Lots of other goodies will decrease or disappear.

Now bear in mind that the current Democratic congress is indicating that most of these tax benefits won't be expiring....they will be preserved for families making under $250,000 per year. That is all well and good, but keep in mind that the preserving may just be a one-year-at-a-time extension, and the same expiration threats will just be moved forward a year at a time.

Stay tuned, I promise an update on Obamacare, but to be honest, that huge mess which had no business being passed is so confusing I am still trying to get my head around all the provisions. Too bad our elected officials didn't read it!

Shortcuts to Impressing your Friends

I sometimes feel like a walking trivia book. For some reason, I have a very good memory for trivial facts, though I have a tough time with names and I lose my keys often! But I can tell you that with a few simple web visits on a daily basis I learn a lot! So I herewith give you my two favorite things to read every day, for starters, and maybe you can get some quick knowledge from these goldmines of knowledge too.

www.rense.com - A giant "link" place where the only news you really need to know is listed down the right side by "most recent" and down the left by topic: i.e. Gulf Disaster, Economy Disaster, every disaster you could ever want! Plus he throws in very interesting stories, for instance I just read a Time magazine article from 1942 he linked, where 42 mental patients in Oregon died when a cook used Flouride (RAT POISON, you know, the stuff they add to water supplies) by mistake instead of baking powder in the eggs, the patients started falling and dying, how sad! But without rense.com i don't think I could have found that!

Harvey Organ's Daily Gold and Silver Blog - Just google Harvey Organ Gold and it will pop up, every day he dissects the fraudulent metals markets, and he also includes the most important few financial stories of the day, almost every day.....you have to learn about the fixed metals markets, it could be the easiest money ever available to be made, but hurry as the lid could blow any day and gold will be $5,000/oz and silver $200/oz or who knows?

Enjoy these sites, and the promised tax update is coming, I promise, as soon as my works slows down a little more!

Tax Update will have to wait! You need to read this!

I am working on a post summarizing the new tax laws heading our way 1/1/11. But in the meantime, I found a great article which does agree with what my research has made me suspicious of...I would feel derelict in my duties to you if I didn't share this article.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22354.html

In a nutshell, the banks of the world are broke, "kaput" as Lily von Schtupp would say! We are in for a disaster, and the only way to hold any wealth will be gold and silver in my humble opinion.
I do hope that articles like this are wrong, but when you print trillions of dollars and the economy still stinks two years later, something has gone very wrong!
I promise a tax update when I get back from the long weekend!