Archive for June 30th, 2009

Taxes, taxes, taxes

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Sometimes I get tired of my friends and relatives asking me for tax advice.  Just because I’ve been filing my own taxes for years, they seem to think I am an expert on taxes!  I keep telling them that I don’t have all the answers, that they really should consult with some Tax Attorneys for the answer to their questions!  I was reading an article on the yahoo news website about how some victims of identity fraud are finding themselves in a mess with the IRS!

That was REALLY news to me!  From what I understand, in some cases identities are stolen so that illegals can get a job, using the stolen social security number.  And then they don’t pay the income taxes on the income, so the victim of the theft is then liable to pay the taxes!  Wow – what a dilemma!  Of course, that particular issue wouldn’t happen if the employers took the taxes out themselves instead of hiring people as independent contractors and sending out 1099s at the end of the year!  Personally, I think that particular process should be revised completely!  But that’s another subject for another post down the road.

Apparently, the victim only finds out about this when they get a letter from the IRS that they will be conducting a tax audit!  As if that isn’t enough to strike fear in every American heart!  When someone has problems with the IRS, getting a tax attorney is a really good idea.  Better than an accountant because with a tax attorney, you have attorney-client privilege which you don’t get with an accountant!

I don’t quite understand hummingbirds

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

I’d love to buy some new hummingbird feedersfor our yard to attract hummingbirds to our yard. I really love the ruby throated hummingbird – it is so beautiful and sparkly. It is dismaying, however, to observe how territorial and vicious they are towards each other! How anything can be so pretty and so mean at the same time is certainly a head-scratcher! I don’t understand the photographs that I see in catalogs where several hummers are feeding at the same time at a feeder – in my experience they chase each other away so that only one can feed at a time! I’ve had to space my feeders far apart so that more than one can feed – if they are close together there is a bully that “guards” them and keeps chasing away all the other hummers!

Hours and hours

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

I’ve spent several hours this morning looking on the Internet to see if I can find out any information about that third platter.  I’ve been looking at the replacements.com website because they have a LOT of patterns, but I can’t seem to find out which pattern it is.  So I’ve taken photos of the platter, front and back and emailed them to their research department to see what they can tell me about them.  Their website says to give them several weeks to reply, so I guess now I just have to be patient!