Personal Dork Assistant

Total Recall

In California, when the Field Poll says you're cooked, you're cooked. Various loonies still think that some chickenshit "scandals" are going to drag down Arnold's support rates. Hell, they probably help his numbers more than they hurt. Brings in those disaffected voters, you know. It hardly matters what Arnold thinks anyway, he'll have plenty of "advisors" to make policy for him. Just throw the big name out there and look good for the camera.

Michael Lewis (a.k.a. Mr. Moneyball) has a piece in the New York Times Magazine dissecting the recall election. He nicely captures the sunny nihilism that's very SoCal, the heart of the recall territory.

Got an email from uncle to forward to mom to clear up some tax matters.

Checked with Kathy/CPA office about tax impact on K-1. Here are the findings:

1. K-1 income is part of ordinary income. 2003 Federal Tax rates dropped as follows:

        

2002	2003	rate drop
27%	25%	2%
30%	28%	2%
35%	33%	2%
38.6%	35%	3.6%

For example: if your tax bracket were 38.6% in year 2002, there is 3.6% drop in year 2003 and your federal tax bracket is 35% under the same amount of income in these two years.

State income tax rate did not have changes from last year.

2. Long term capital gains rates of 20% and 10% are lowered to 15% and 5%, respectively, effective for sales and exchanges on or after May 5, 2003. In your case, your long term capital gains of year 2003 (transaction date after 5/5/03) is 15%.

Short-term capital gains (those from securities held for less than one year) will be taxed at the ordinary income rate.

I hope the above info will help. For details, please consult with your CPA directly.

Sucks that K-1 income doesn't count for the dividend-tax cut. I guess if you didn't know that the rich benefit the most from the tax cut, the big cut to the top bracket is a boot to the head to remind you. Especially since the cut applies to all income from 100K (or wherever the top-bracket starts) to infinity (and beyond). Helps with those short-term capital gains, too.