Ho Ho Ho

We just finished dinner at the La Verkin city staff Christmas party.  Now we're all gathering in a circle to begin playing our yearly pick a present game.  It is definitely good for some laughs, which these good hard-working folks deserve!

I made it to day 18 with my treadmill friend this morning, walking 0.39 miles in 10 minutes, gradually increasing grades 4-12%.  I burned 58 calories.  Heart going fast, but less than last night. It is a good way to kick start my day!

Most of my day was devoted to the yearly Utah State University tax update school in St. George.  It goes for two days, we covered such exciting topics as how tax law changes have affected how to calculate basis of assets, and thus how much tax is due when they are sold, and recapture (of a lot of things besides just depreciation, we even covered recapture of alimony deductions under certain situations -- meaning in some cases, people who deduct alimony payments from their income have to add it back in a few years later and pay tax on it).  The IRS is going to require more to be done electronically, for example, there is going to be a new form this year that clients will have to sign if they insist on not filing electronically.  The state of Utah spent most of their hour on rules on when partnerships and other pass-through entities have to withhold tax from the income paid to its partners.  I thought it was an "interesting" choice of topics from among everything they could have chosen to discuss.

The longest session, held in late afternoon was 1 1/2 hours on ethics, split about equally between theory from sources such as the Josephson Institute and practical application in tax situations.  For example, a low-income woman comes in who has been abandoned by her husband, barely surviving financially and clearly needing a large refund.  Her youngest child, and the only one living at home, is 19 years old, which means there are income limits for her to be claimed as a dependent, and also so the woman can qualify for head of household status.  The child has one W-2 showing wages of $3,100 for the year, low enough for the mother to qualify for deductions that would give her a large refund.  In the course of the conversation, you learn that the child also received a few hundred dollars for selling plasma, for which there are no records and no one will ever know that this money was received.  With that money included, the child would not be able to be claimed as a deduction and the mother would actually owe tax.  The scenario ended with the rhetorical question:  "What would you do?" after which several other rhetorical question scenarios were presented.

I go back for a second day of this school tomorrow.  It is great that it is in St. George, most continuing education requires travel to Salt Lake or Las Vegas.