loppy, and uninterested in what is going to take place.

My friends, it is time to get oursevles organized. We have all heard that knowledge is power, haven't we? Let's plan to have our refunds be minor ones so that we can make use of our money all throughout the year. This will prevent us from r

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ron Piner and I'm a practicing CPA in Maryland. From the time I was a young fellow in high school, I knew I wanted to be an accountant. Believe it or not, when I attended the University of Maryland, all I could think about was passing the CPA exam. The thought of being able to help individuals and businesses with financial issues ranging from the very basic to the most complex is an excitement I still carry this day. I love fielding questions, I love identifying the issues at hand, and I particulary love dealing with folks who take interest in their financial matters on a proactive basis.

Twenty-one years of practicing public accounting has povided me with many insights and realities. This profession is a brutal one as there is always a deadline to meet and never enough staff to complete the task at hand. Long hours are required and the pay is never enough to reward effort made. Clients rearly offer compliment or praise. It is little wonder that fewer and fewer students go into the profession as time moves forward. I must admit, that I have grown tired, very tired, of eighty-five hour weeks trying to satisfy clients that are unorganized, sloppy, and uninterested in what is going to take place.

My friends, it is time to get oursevles organized. We have all heard that knowledge is power, haven't we? Let's plan to have our refunds be minor ones so that we can make use of our money all throughout the year. This will prevent us from ru

ought of being able to help individuals and businesses with financial issues ranging from the very basic to the most complex is an excitement I still carry this day. I love fielding questions, I love identifying the issues at hand, and I particulary love dealing with folks who take interest in their financial matters on a proactive basis.

Twenty-one years of practicing public accounting has povided me with many insights and realities. This profession is a brutal one as there is always a deadline to meet and never enough staff to complete the task at hand. Long hours are required and the pay is never enough to reward effort made. Clients rearly offer compliment or praise. It is little wonder that fewer and fewer students go into the profession as time moves forward. I must admit, that I have grown tired, very tired, of eighty-five hour weeks trying to satisfy clients that are unorganized, sloppy, and uninterested in what is going to take place.

My friends, it is time to get oursevles organized. We have all heard that knowledge is power, haven't we? Let's plan to have our refunds be minor ones so that we can make use of our money all throughout the year. This will prevent us from r

nancial matters on a proactive basis.

Twenty-one years of practicing public accounting has povided me with many insights and realities. This profession is a brutal one as there is always a deadline to meet and never enough staff to complete the task at hand. Long hours are required and the pay is never enough to reward effort made. Clients rearly offer compliment or praise. It is little wonder that fewer and fewer students go into the profession as time moves forward. I must admit, that I have grown tired, very tired, of eighty-five hour weeks trying to satisfy clients that are unorganized, sloppy, and uninterested in what is going to take place.

My friends, it is time to get oursevles organized. We have all heard that knowledge is power, haven't we? Let's plan to have our refunds be minor ones so that we can make use of our money all throughout the year. This will prevent us from r

s never enough to reward effort made. Clients rearly offer compliment or praise. It is little wonder that fewer and fewer students go into the profession as time moves forward. I must admit, that I have grown tired, very tired, of eighty-five hour weeks trying to satisfy clients that are unorganized, sloppy, and uninterested in what is going to take place.

My friends, it is time to get oursevles organized. We have all heard that knowledge is power, haven't we? Let's plan to have our refunds be minor ones so that we can make use of our money all throughout the year. This will prevent us from r

loppy, and uninterested in what is going to take place.

My friends, it is time to get oursevles organized. We have all heard that knowledge is power, haven't we? Let's plan to have our refunds be minor ones so that we can make use of our money all throughout the year. This will prevent us from running up credit card debt to make ends meet, it will allow us to make additional contributions to our retirement funds, and may even allow for an extra payment or so on our mortgages. Are you tracking with me so far? Certainly by now, we should have at least some basic understanding of how income taxes and income tax deductions work. Many of our income tax deduction come in the form of itemized deductions. Many of us know this to be a result of mortgage interest expense, real estate taxes, and the like. Other itemized deductions include medical expenses, charitable contributions and miscellaneous deductions.

These deductions are we we call in the profession, "getting deductions below the line". This means that these deductions are taken after our adjusted gross income (AGI). Our respective AGI's will determine how much of our medical expenses we will be able to deduct (7.5% of AGI). A given AGI will determine how much of our miscellaneous itemized deductions will become deductible (2% of AGI) not even considering that a taxpayer could be in the alternative minimum tax rendering miscellaneous itemized deductions useless for federal income taxes anyway. Tired of these thresholds and limi