2007-06-11T12:19:00.000-04:00

Last night, my husband and I watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They were rebuilding a home for a local family here in Tenn. Being the tax nerds that we are, my husband and I began discussing the tax implications of having a TV show upgrade your home.

It's sad, the show picks people who are in dire straights, but it's entirely possible that the tax burden for the improvements could bankrupt them.

This morning, my husband, using his mad law librarian skills, sent me not one, but two scholarly papers on the tax implications of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition(1). Interestingly, the IRS hasn't taken a stand on the issue at all.

The show uses an interesting tax loophole to claim that the upgrades (or even the building of a brand new house) are tax free. Under the IRS tax code(2), if you lease your primary residence out for less the 15 days, the income you earn under the lease is tax free. So what the show does, on paper, is lease the residence for $50,000, paid in appliances and other fixtures. The labor is volunteer labor from the community so it is not included in the cost of the upgrade.

Also, if a lessee makes improvements to property, those improvements are not taxable to the lessor(3).

If the IRS chooses to look into this, it probably won't hold water. The IRS uses a "substance over form" doctrine for ruling on tax issues. That is to say, the IRS doesn't look primarily to how something is set up on paper, but to what is actually going on in reality. The IRS has mixed success actually following its substance over form doctrine, but in this case, the substance is pretty clear.

Interestingly, I doubt that the IRS will look into this overmuch. The show works very hard to find families in extreme need. For example, the episode last night- a family's home was completely destroyed by a tornado. Father is a firefighter, mother was a medical tech. Note the "was." She threw her body over her two children to protect them from the house collapsing in on them and is permanently paralyzed from the waist down. When the show was filmed, she had been out of the hospital, where she spent three months, for less than month. The IRS does not particularly want the bad press for going after families that have suffered extreme tragedy and are the recipients of corporate and community charity as a result- even when that charity comes in the form of an hour long advertisement for Sears and any number of name brand appliances and tools.

Frankly, I agree with the most likely public sentiment- these people shouldn't be asked to shoulder the tax burden of either community charity or of the corporate advertising that benefits them. To do so would make the show go from being commercial, but with a true benefit to the recipients, to strictly exploitive. It's a purely emotional appeal, but somehow, having a home that is handicapped accessible and a pool in the backyard doesn't make up for three months in the hospital and the loss of one's legs.

On the other hand, should the family choose to sell the property rather then keep it for their personal use, I am all for the improvements affecting their capital gains on the selling price the property brings. It being the primary residence means that there are ways to avoid many of the tax implications of the sale, but if the money is not reinvested into a new primary residence, then the sale does become, IMO, a commercial profit making venture and should be taxed as such.

Anyway, I found the articles fascinating and the whole concept of the tax implications of receiving charitable giving very fascinating. I may look further into it.

1. The Unexpected Tax Consequences of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" by Jennifer Nash and The Extreme Home Renovation Giveaway: Constructive Justification for Tax Free Home Improvements on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition by Brian Hirsch.
2. I.R.C. Sec. 280A(g)
3. I.R.C. Sec. 109

Maureen Dowd has managed to thoroughly piss me off again. Her column in today's New York times is a searing indictement of- the government? Nope. The media for it's coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death? Nope.

Chicklit.

That's right, apparently, Dowd wandered into a bookstore for the first time in the past decade and realized that books written by women for women have moved out of its ghetto and made their way into the front of the store. Apparently, unknown to Ms. Dowd, reading for entertainment has become quite a hit, and she isn't happy about it.

Not only is her column condescending, outdated, and factually wrong (one of the books she cites as a sign of the epidemic of pink is actually written for the tweener girl audience, not for adults), but it seems to indicate a deep-seated dislike of women reading and writing about women.

She complains about the pink covers, as if the authors get any say about the color of their bookcovers, or the color is indicative of the subject matter. Jennifer Weiner fought for her book Goodnight, Nobody to be another color, but marketers at her publishing company worried that readers would not realize it was a new book by her- despite the fact that her name is larger than the title on the front. She also complained about the skinny girl on the front, but was ignored. (Her newest collection of short stories has a light blue cover.)

That's not the real issue though. The heart of the matter is that Dowd is buying into the old, tired, frustrating, disgusting idea that women's writing for other women is frivilous, meaningless, and personal whereas men's writing is literary, meaningful, and universal. Her condescending attitude and dismissal of chicklit make it very clear that she's never read anything in the genre, and that she is clueless as to why millions of women buy and read these books.

Bookstores moved chicklit out of the ghetto because these books sell. While the "literary world" is arguing about what books constitute literature and have meaning, women have spoken quite clearly with their credit and library cards. Bring on the pink covers!

Chicklit is often meaningful, relevant, and fun. It connects readers to other readers who are excited about the next book in the series. It reminds women that they are not alone. It also deals with topics that are weightier than its ever given credit for. For example, I think chicklit finally broke the code of silence around the exhausted mommies- women who didn't want to admit that having kids isn't always all it's cracked up to be spoke up first in fiction. Chicklit writers also deals with issues like infidelity, friendship, sexism, and workplace issues with a refreshing honesty.

Her advice to read the Red Badge of Courage was particularly out of line. If you're at all well-read or educated, you should have read The Red Badge of Courage in high school (or junior high). So Ms. Dowd can shove her literary pretentions up her ass.

Ms. Dowd is, frankly, an idiot- a sexist idiot whose own writing reads more like a stilted gossip column than the books she chooses to malign. The NY Times should be embarrassed for running this dated, sexist, poorly written, badly researched piece of crap. Her writing, reading recommendations, and examples all lead me to believe that Ms. Dowd's reading level and interests are at about the 8th grade level.

For more on this topic I recommend the following (literate) columnists:

Jennifer Weiner

Galleycat

http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/news/magazine.htm

I found this study interesting, but not particularly surprising.

I do find it interesting, that, like rape, we work very hard to make sexual harassment look like something other than it is. In the case of rape, we work to make it look like a violent attack by a stranger in the night, when more often, it is a woman being violated by someone she trusts- a friend, a date, a family member. We try to make ourselves more comfortable with the interplay between men and women by placing sexual violence in the realm of "other" or "stranger", and as a result we don't really teach people what rape IS. We somehow classify "date rape" as a lesser crime than "rape".

I loved that Berdahl firmly does not blame the victim in this study. Instead:

Asked what advice she would give a talented female student with leadership aspirations, Berdahl said the onus shouldn't be on women to avoid discrimination; it should be on those in charge to prevent it.

And in the meantime?

"Women are already navigating these social conflicts to the best of their ability," she said. "But ultimately, it's not their responsibility, nor is it in their control."*

Not very comforting. It's hard to admit that you can't change to make things easier for you, and most women know that they walk a tightrope in the workplace- too sexy or feminine and you aren't respected, not "female" enough and you're sabotaged and harassed. And still not respected. It's depressing.

And no one likes to be told that there is something about their career trajectory that they can't control. In this day and age when everyone is supposed to be shooting to be the next CEO like previous generations attempted to be PotUS, we're supposed to all have an equal chance at success.

But, that simply isn't the case. Classism prevents mobility- if you don't have the clothes, the car, the image, the diction you're not going to move beyond the lower rungs. Gender, gender roles, connections, education, background- these things all play a part in deciding how high our ceilings are. I suspect that the illusion of upward mobility is one of the carrots that keeps Americans pushing up our productivity levels year after year. Young workers put in long hours, give up their lives, and become immersed in a corporate culture in order to succeed, but the fact is, most of us won't. The average lawyer practices law for only three years after leaving law school- accountants are the same way- three years until they leave public accounting, at least, if not the whole profession.

Gender roles, class, and workplace behavior are topics that have somewhat fallen off the radar. Actually discussions of class in America are pretty much NEVER on the radar. I don't have any solutions to offer. Think about your individual behavior in the workplace- do you punish women who do not meet your gender expectations? Do you shun them? Like rape, sexual harassment is a grossly misunderstood issue. It is a joke and a perceived romantic farce, I hope Berdahl's study gets the press it deserves and creates an opportunity for real dialogue about harassment in workplace gender roles.

* Carol Goar, Toronto Star, 24 January 2007

In any basic economics course, students are indoctrinated into his work. I use the word "indoctrinated" intentionally. It's not the Friedman's ideas are wrong, but the values underneath them need to be challenged.

Friedman and the economists created under his auspices are interested in market efficiency, and, in fact, Economics has become the study of how to make a market efficient. It seems to me that no one is really asking a more complicated, underlying question. Given that, according to our prevailing market theory, there is always a trade off between efficiency and equity, is making the market more efficient the ethical choice? Is it even the best choice for our society?

Capitalism as a philosophy insists that we have an obligation to the free market. The free market has no room for worker protections, for equality in hiring, for anti-trust legislation. It has no room for the government to step in and protect the individual from industry. It encourages consumerism as morality- we buy things to define our values- things for ourselves, things for our homes, things for other people. It supports work ethic as the only ethic- and it implies insidiously that wealth comes to those who deserve it as a reward for an ethical life.

It is, at its core, a morally bankrupt system where wealth is the defining measure of moral goodness and the accumulation of wealth is a valid ethical choice regardless of the consequences to our society, environement, or psyche.

We need a new model for our society.

The student health fee is particularly egregious because it disproportionately affects poorer students- those more likely to have chosen a state college for financial reasons and more likely to be struggling to find resources to finish. Added to the fees for the new career center, the hike in printing costs, the disgusting amount students pay for textbooks, and the repeated double decimal rise in tuition rates, this "health" fee is a harsh reminder that despite the university's claims to be a student focused not-for-profit organization, it's actually a money-grubbing institution that views students as cash-cows.

And last comes that perennial issue, parking. Now, I don't mind parking at the stadium, and I appreciate UofL's partnership with TARC, but parking fees are going up and parking places are on the decline. The City of Louisville, perhaps taking its cue from the university, is also working to make students feel unwelcome, reducing public street parking in areas surrounding the campus. UofL has turned 2 more parking lots into mud zones- apparently, according the signs, in order to build yet another athletic building.

It is also noteworthy the number of students who have paid for the higher cost parking permits who are still parking at the stadium because the university grossly oversold its upperclassman and resident parking passes. That's right. Even students who pay to live on campus are parking out by the football stadium. Too bad the school's TARC busses stop running before 10 pm.

Basically, the university is doing everything in its power to siphon more money out of students, to make them feel unwelcome on campus, and to create an environment where graduation is difficult, students are powerless, and poorer students get left behind. Two years ago, I would have recommended the University of Louisville to anyone. Today, I'd tell them to apply elsewhere.

Thank you, UofL, for making me feel like I'm getting mugged everyday I'm on campus.

Thank You for Smoking, a witty, vicious little movie about spin. The movie follows the life of a fictional lobbyist for the tobacco industry named Nick Nailer (played by Aaron Eckhart). He narrates the story as well as living in the action.

I was intrigued by the movie because it is about a totally morally bankrupt character surrounded by other morally bankrupt characters. They are not inhumanized or villianized, particularly; they just go about their daily lives with little regard to the consequences of their actions and absolutely no sense of personal responsibility.

I enjoyed the movie because it wasn't a triumph of the better human qualities or a story about a Scrooge-like change of heart. Nailer simply goes on about his business of defending corporations with no introspection what-so-ever. In fact, none of the characters ever have a moment when they exam their lives and their motives.

The movie was funny, in that brutal, honest, and mean sort of way.

What makes it worth writing a post about however, is my curiosity as to how audiences perceived the film.

Did they share my horrified amusement at a character who really is utterly amoral? I suspect that the answer is "No."

See, Thank You for Smoking pretends to be a redemption story. It neatly follows the arc we all expect to see from a story about a man's enlightenment. He is alienated and reunited with his son. He confronts someone who is directly affected by his work, and he loses everything when someone more ruthless than he is sells him out.

And I suspect that many viewers took the story at face value, and failed to recognize that the redpemption in this film is a farce.

The movie neatly skewers the genre- the character makes a dramatic "courtroom" stance, and then, when faced with reporters and an offer to take back his own life, he turns it down.

But, unlike Scrooge and countless other such tales, we get to see the rest of the story, and the rest of the story is that the character doesn't change. In fact, except for the name on his office door, nothing changes.

And that is the point of the film.

Lookie here, some commercial bastard has decided to create a magazine to undo 100 years of the women's movement and use its sexist premises to sell us things based on our "natural rythmns".

As if it's not bad enough to create a magazine claiming that women are ruled by their uterii, this fucker also reinforces the women should be spending their time, since each week of our cycles is broken down into the categories: Shopping, Food, Travel, and DIY (the DIY is the typical Cosmo "selfhelp" crap, btw). How exciting. Nowhere in there is the things I'd like to see like

Week 2: Exciting
This would be the best time to stage your carefully planned hostile takeover of yet another company.

Nope, it's Here's how to remodel your bathroom!!

I have a fucking brilliant idea, how about we get past the stage where we assume that women's uterii float around their body fucking up their ability to think logically and act normal? I know it's goddam radical, but really, it's time we moved on.

How about we stop subverting women's self esteem, security, and rightful place as half of the human race to the almighty dollar?

You know what? Men have crappy days. They have times of the month when they feel lethargic or pissy. Do you know what we call that? Nothing. We just accept that a guy is having a down day and move on. When women have the same thing, we call it abnormal. Know why? Because we have set men up as the goddam standard of "normal" for the entire history of the study of biological science.

Move on, people. There's nothing to see here except the tatters of Victorianism that still bind us to patriarchy wrapped neatly in the commercial need to undermine women in order to make them buy crap.

How about we just live everyday and stop pretending we need someone else to tell us what we need to be happy?

1. Boy must make up more absurd lies to cover the first one
2. Boy and Girl never actually TALK to each other

Boy gets caught in lie, and only after getting caught realizes that he was doing anything wrong
Boy makes some grand gesture, girl falls for it AGAIN (probably because she’s been brainwashed by other romantic comedies)
And we’re supposed to leave the theater believing the boy has changed because the girl is the ONE.

Did I already say what a load of crock? I did? Okay then.

BULLSHIT.

And there are people who actually have these kinds of relationships – men who cheat or lie or patronize over and over again, and then make some grand gesture, and the woman, brainwashed by stupid concepts of romance, believes that grand gestures = real change, every single time. And worse, she believes that an absence of grand gestures means that he doesn’t really love her, anyway.

I know so many people who live their life with their gears in neutral, waiting for the other person who is going to make their life something meaningful. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if your life isn’t already meaningful, no one can fix that for you.

When you enter a relationship, the best and only thing any of us have to offer is ourselves. There will always be someone out there who is prettier, smarter, stronger, more… whatever it is we think we need to be in order to find love, but no one, NO ONE can compete with you in this thing – being YOU. And if you’re with someone who loves your attributes rather than you, that’s not good enough.

Love is not about grand gestures and it’s not about the attributes. Love is about living with each other every day and loving the whole of someone else. It’s about seeing the faults, knowing their past, believing in the future.

Love is this grand experiment, and it’s scary and wonderful and comfortable and challenging.

Anything less is just a tepid movie.

Up until a couple of years ago my views on marriage were cynical - and that's the kindest thing I can say about them.

I saw a lot of people move from dating to marriage not because they made the decision to get married, but because that was the next step to a relationship. First you date, and then you get married. I saw a lot of people get married out of obligation, because of pressure, out of guilt, or just because it was time to get married based on some life goal timeline in their mind. I saw lots of people get married for lots of bad reasons. And I saw lots of people get divorced.

I even served as a bridesmaid at a wedding where the wedding party (sans bride and groom) had a betting pool as to how quickly the couple would divorce. The most optimistic was 2 years. The couple separated after less than year.Worse, I saw many miserable people staying together because they were married. If they'd been dating both parties would have left - and been better off for it.

My friend Thomas pithily put it best, "I've seen couples get married for the wrong reasons, but I've never known anyone who got divorced for the wrong reasons."

My views on marriage were shaped by watching marriages fall apart: my parents', my friends', other relatives'. I'd seen some people in happy marriages, but they were the exception.

Around five years I started working for marriage rights for gay and lesbians. In retrospect, it was pretty hypocritical of me. I didn't really believe in marriage at all. I did believe in rights for everyone though, and marriage in our society comes with rights. It comes with significant tax breaks, legal protections, and it makes a whole host of things like inheritance, adoption, and travel easier. It provides the vehicle for making "next of kin" decisions in hospitals.

Then, three years ago, I spent a week in Washington, DC training to become a grassroots organizer for marriage rights. That week totally changed my outlook on marriage. I watched couples who had invested themselves totally in each other, despite the pressure from society to conform to the hetero-norm. I was surrounded by people who had fought so hard to be in legitimate relationships that they had given an incredible amount of thought about what marriage meant for society as a whole and what it meant to them, personally.

To these people marriage meant:
-An outward sign of an inner commitment- The ability to create a family (even if it was only a family of two)
- The ability to welcome the person he/she loved into THEIR family- A way to tell their SO that they were committed to the relationship
- A way to tell the world unequivocally that they were committed to each other

One story broke my heart. A young man lost his partner of many years six months before the DC conference. His partner’s family never accepted their relationship and completely shut him out of the funeral process. Not only could he not give a eulogy, he wasn’t even welcome at the service. He doesn’t know where his SO is buried. Because he couldn’t marry his SO; he was denied the bonds of family that marriage can provide. He was denied closure and even the right to mourn that we take for granted.

Even if his partner’s family had accepted him as family, many employers would not have given him funeral leave, nor the time needed to settle his SO’s affairs.I also saw for the first time the role that community plays in a relationship. Married couples are given a level of support and acceptance in the community that is absent for couples who are “just dating” regardless of level of commitment or length of time a couple has been together. This is true with straight couples who choose not to marry, as well, as same sex couples.

I see it in my own short time married. People treat me differently, and they respect my relationship with my husband in ways I couldn’t even imagine before our ceremony. They assume that he will be included in decisions – and that I will be included in his. They assume that we are a priority in each others’ lives and take that into account when they ask us to do additional work or to alter our plans. Our marriage license is a notice to the community that our relationship matters to us. Same-sex couples simply don’t get that level of community support.

That week in DC was the first time that I looked at marriage without the lens of legal obligations and without the bitterness born of watching marriages fall apart. I came home more thoughtful about the institution of marriage. I began looking for married couples who might share the spirit of the group in DC. And, to my surprise, I found them.

The healthy, positive, thoughtful approach to marriage isn’t just a result of romantic notions of a group to whom the privilege has been denied. There are many couples who make the decision to get married for good reasons. Legal reasons? Yes. Romantic notions? I hope so. But more than that, the institute of marriage brings something meaningful to their relationship.

It’s ironic that I discovered the joy and the sanctity of marriage by working for a cause many Americans fear will destroy the institution. It’s sad that so many people marry for the wrong reasons. Six weeks ago, I married the love of my life. I am beholden to the gay community for giving me the insight into marriage that made this possible. Without my experiences in DC, I never would have been open to the way marriage could enhance my already committed relationship.

I hope that my own marriage provide a platform to fight for the same privilege to those who gave me this gift.

not to marry career women - with a photo slide show.

She's more like to cheat because when your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they'll meet someone they like more than you. "The work environment provides a host of potential partners,"... Perhaps if you're so insecure and uninteresting that the fact that she works means that she might cheat is a concern, you're not quite ready for a serious relationship yet.

Women have dealt with this issue for years, after all. Men moved in broader circles and had more opportunities to meet other women. Now, women have that some opportunity. Perhaps Maxim and the other men's magazines should start adding helpful columns on "how to stay interesting for your wife". I assume they will be as insulting as the similar articles filling the pges of Cosmo every month.

Basically the article says that marrying a career woman is risky because if you're a lousy husband, she has the wherewithall to leave your sorry ass. Of course, it makes this out to be that she is less committed to marriage. Gah! It also infuriates me because if this same article appeared in a women's mag, it would no doubt be telling us how to change to become "better wives".

According to a wide-ranging review of the published literature, highly educated people are more likely to have had extra-marital sex (those with graduate degrees are 1.75 more likely to have cheated than those with high school diplomas.) Additionally, individuals who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.

Can we get a gender breakdown, please? Because thanks to the Victorians, men both make more money than women, and for most of our social development as a society were encouraged to sow their seed among as many fields as they could manage to plow. I notice the fact that these statistics are based on income neatly sidesteps the question of gender.

Also, it's true that a woman dedicated to her career might not want children. If you want children, marry someone else who wants children. Don't assume that you can knock some woman up and that she's going to be happy staying off with your crotch spawn.

And if you're the type of man who is going to be depressed because your wife makes more money than you, buy a bride. They'll be happy to live off your leavings afterall, she comes from a situation where she felt compelled to sell herself to you in the first place.

There is so much wrong with this article, I don't even know where to start.

Your house will be dirtier? If both of you make more than $30k annually, you can probably afford to hire a cleaning service. My husband and I have already discussedthis as part of our household budget, because not only do I intend to have a career, but I'm a lousy housekeeper anyway.

I LOVE this: A word of caution, though: As with any social scientific study, it's important not to confuse correlation with causation. In other words, just because married folks are healthier than single people, it doesn't mean that marriage is causing the health gains. It could just be that healthier people are more likely to be married.

So the article makes all these assumptions, but when the author notes that marriage might be a good idea in the first place, we'll make a corrlation/causation distinction. Why not for the whole damn article?

I hope to god every businesswomen in America cancels her subscription to Forbes.

ETA: The cowardly editors over at Forbes apparently aren't happy about the ruckus, but they didn't want to actually take the article down, so they moved it to here:

http://www.forbes.com/home/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html

with a "counterpoint". I prefer the counterpoint on BoingBoing where someone just reversed the gender pronouns to make their point.

an article inspired by the Radio Shack lay-offs. It springboards into thoughts I've been having lately as I begin job hunting in my field. I wonder if companies realize the impact that their reputation in the community has on recruitment efforts - do they not get that employees talk to old classmates and friends and that the "networking" that is touted as a great way to get jobs is also a great way to find out which companies to avoid? Do companies make any effort to gauge their reputation as EMPLOYERS? Sometimes I think not- or at the least, that they are desperately out of touch with their reputation among prospective employees.

For example, there is a large, prestigous, international accounting firm here in Louisville- one of the big four. As far as I've been able to see, no one is happy working for them. I've never met anyone who works for them who likes their job or work environment. I would never apply for a job with them - and I'm not alone. My study group is the top tier of my graduating class, and only one of us is considering even applying with them - and she's not planning to stay - she wants to work with them a year or two at the most and then move into a different type of accounting. So essentially, among those most qualified, no one plans to even apply for a position with one of the big four in Louisville. This is significant. It is no way for an organization to have anything resembling long-term quality. Not a single public accountant from this graduationg class is interested in becoming a future principle in their firm.

Another company in town, one of Louisville's largest employers, has a similiarly bad reputation. It also has an aging workforce - because younger workers have seen the reputation and want no part of it. Once again, younger workers might go to work for them, planning to gain a year or two of experience "in the mines", and then they take their experience elsewhere. For example, I worked with a woman at a local company where she couldn't acquire a skill she wanted to develop. She went and worked for less than a year at the company with a poor reputation, and then once she acquired the new skill, took a job back with her previous employer. She had planned to stay at the other company, but the work environment was so poisonous that she came back, bringing her newly acquired skills with her.

Companies with poor reputations become proving grounds. New, inexperienced workers go and obtain some experience and knowledge, and then leave to work for a better company once they have the resume fodder. In the long run, especially once the baby boomers really begin to retire en masse, these corporations are going to be hurting for workers and most especially for quality, experienced workers. Companies will be competing for fewer prospective employees in the next decade anyway, because of the generational difference between the boomers and their decendents.

There are fewer of us than there were of our parents (and grandparents). Our values are different, our work ethic and our sense of self-worth is different. We grew up with lay-offs and "downsizing", we understand implicitly that there is no real loyalty contract between us and our employers. We do not have pensions. We do not have retirement plans through our employers. Many of us don't even have health insurance. We plan to live longer, and we do not see careers as an end goal, for us they are a continuation process - we may change midstream; we may develop something different.

Companies need to recognize that recruiting and keeping us is a whole new game.

Life in the FASB Lane