Mark Luscombe Quotations

People who don't live in presidential-declared disaster areas get help, but not the most help or the quickest. Those in declared disaster areas but not in the Hurricane Katrina-Rita-Wilma areas get more help quicker, while those in the Katrina-Rita-Wilma disaster areas get most.

The odds of winning the grand prize are less than one in 146 million, but it's a sure bet that if you do win a big jackpot, you're going to also have a big tax bill, with more than one-third of your winnings going to the IRS.

I can't tell you why there hasn't been a hue and cry about this. Maybe it's just because the baby boomers aren't quite old enough to be affected by it yet.

Ideal candidates would be those who can afford to pay a little more now with the hope of long-term savings down the road, helped out a little by the tax savings on the initial investment.

No self-respecting tax practitioner would sign on to any of these.

The one thing that can make a bad situation worse is not filing your return or requesting an extension. That brings on a failure-to-file penalty, in addition to possible penalties and interest for failure to pay. It's smart to file even if you can't pay, and pay even if you get an extension to file.

Generally, the unemployment rate is pretty low. I'm not sure they do at this point.

In spite of all the talk about simplicity, in fact the tax code has gotten more complicated every year.

This is because they're viewed as prepaid interest.

What's really complex about it is you're going to have to do allocations you've never had to do before.