| Losing vacation time to bankruptcy
Baltimoresun.com's tax-advice column features three experts from the Hunt Valley accounting firm SC&H Group answering questions about preparing your return every Monday until April 17. To be included in the following weeks, please use the form at the right side of this page to submit your questions.
Barbara Smith, Baltimore: I worked for a company that filed for bankruptcy. When they filed, they owed me 20 days of vacation. I filed as a creditor on the bankruptcy. I have been notified by the court that the 10 years is up and the company never came out of bankruptcy. Can I claim this as a loss, as the debt will never be paid?
SC&H Group: Individual taxpayers file on the cash basis method of accounting. Since you did not include any of the accrued vacation in your income in previous years, you do not get a bad debt or other deduction for the lost income.
KC housing market offers ‘wonderful’ opportunity for first-time ...
Elizabeth Watkins, a senior loan officer at Advance Mortgage in Overland Park, agrees this is a good time to buy. "There are too many houses on the market right now, and there are people who are moving who want to close on their house," she said. "This is a great time to look for a house." Watkins said some motivated sellers will even pay the closing costs and down payment on FHA-approved loans. She said a buyer can lock in close to a conventional 5.5 percent FHA-approved loan or a 5.75 percent non-FHA loan, and rates are still falling, in anticipation of another Fed rate cut later this month. But Watkins, like Welsh, cautions buyers to deal only with experienced and honest professionals. Three years ago, I quoted Watkins — who has been a loan officer for 17 years — warning buyers against exotic "teaser" loans that were destined to soar in two or three years.
Timeline for Corzine's tenure
Nov. 8 Corzine, then a U.S. senator, defeats Republican businessman Doug Forrester in the most expensive, and one of the nastiest, gubernatorial races in state history. Both men largely funded their own campaigns. Corzine spent $39.1 million to Forrester's $19.1 million and won 53 percent to 43 percent. Dec. 7 Corzine announces he will name then-Rep. Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, to finish his unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. Menendez, the first Hispanic Senator from New Jersey, was selected among a crowded field of congressmen and state lawmakers. Dec. 14 Corzine names veteran federal prosecutor Stuart Rabner to be his chief counsel. Widely praised on ethics from both parties, Rabner would later become attorney general, then chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
Mayor wants to strip suburbs' say in merger
Herenton, who began an unprecedented fifth term in office Tuesday, said in his speech to the Kiwanis Club at The Peabody that he's putting consolidation back on the "front burner." "Yes, I'm singing out of this choir book again," he said, calling the current city-county governmental structure "wasteful." Under the traditional Tennessee approach to consolidating governments, Herenton would have to follow the legal process set out by both the Tennessee Constitution and state statute -- a countywide referendum that requires separate majority votes of residents inside the city of Memphis and those outside the city limits in Shelby County, including residents of the suburban municipalities. If consolidation wins inside the city but is rejected among Shelby voters outside the city, or vice versa, it fails to win approval.
Grand jury foreman irate in Supreme Court justice arson case
HOUSTON (AP) — In a case some say reveals political backscratching at the courthouse, a Texas Supreme Court justice saw his arson-related indictment thrown out Friday at the request of a scandal-plagued, but fellow Republican, prosecutor. The move outraged the grand jury foreman, who threatened to reconvene the panel and issue the charges again. .
Campaigns scramble for support in Nevada's new caucus territory
LAS VEGAS — The fight for top-billing in Saturday's Nevada Democratic presidential caucus has become much like its model in Iowa: an hour-by-hour test of who has the best organization. But unlike Iowa, Nevada never really has done this before, and not on the scale an early caucus date requires. No one knows for sure what the best organization should look like in a state with two major population centers and vast stretches of desert in between. .
Candidates Don't Fit Carolinians' Conservative Mold
Here is a guide to what's at stake for the candidates in South Carolina's GOP primary on Jan. 19, and the issues that will be on voters' minds. Candidates: Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; California Rep. Duncan Hunter; Arizona Sen. John McCain; Texas Rep. Ron Paul; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson What's at Stake: The GOP field is wide open now that the party's three significant contests have been won by three different candidates. Huckabee has been courting the state's large number of religious conservatives. (Roughly 40 percent of South Carolinians consider themselves evangelicals). McCain, the New Hampshire primary winner, is popular with the state's military veterans.
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The resulting H5N1 pandemic will cripple the US economy, halting most commerce for a period of 12 to 24 months and bankrupting the federal government and most American citizens. The pandemic will also cause grave panic among the nation's residents, as sources of food, medicine, and the necessities of daily living will ultimately become unavailable. Presently, there is little effective, unified worldwide or national leadership in the arena of discovering real prevention and/or treatment protocols for H5N1. Consequently, it is up to each of us as individuals, to mount our own personal preparedness and protection program. The new book, "Infection Protection: Pandemic" provides an introductory backdrop of information about influenza in-general and bird flu in-specific, and the current -- and potentially fatal future -- ramifications of the H5N1 virus.
Political background to the CPE protests
We are reposting the following series of articles on the revolt of the French working class in November-December 1995 in the hope that it will help to clarify the political background to the present upheaval in that country. The ongoing revolt by millions of youth and workers is a further response to the effort by the French ruling class to slash or eliminate entirely the social gains made in decades of struggle. In November-December 1995, the working class revolted against efforts by the right-wing regime of Prime Minister Alain Juppé to reform the social security system, just as today the government of Dominique de Villepin is reforming Frances labor laws. In 1995 millions of workers, led by the transport workers in particular, rejected the claims made by the government and the media and recognized the maneuver for what it wasan attempt to shift the burden of the social costs on to the back of the working population.
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