Don't Mess With Taxes

Dan Meyer has a cool holiday blogging tradition. Each December at his blog, Tick Marks, Dan selects the Twelve Blogs of Christmas.

There are three categories: accounting, personal finance and, of course, tax. Dan nominates blogs in each category and then will announce the winners throughout the month.

This year's PF nominees are All Financial Matters, Five Cent Nickel, Get Rich Slowly, My Money Blog, No Credit Needed and Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

In the tax blog sector, Dan has tapped CPA Sense, Taxalicious, Tax Mama, Tax Info Blog (Tax Playa), Wandering Tax Pro, and Wills, Trusts and Estates Prof Blog.

Great nominees all, with many of these bloggers either in my blogroll (there in the left column) or past (and I hope future) participants in Tax Carnivals (more on this a little later in this post).

12 Blogs Hall of Fame: "Wait! Where the heck is Don't Mess With Taxes?" come the cries from my fans. OK, maybe that's just the hubby I'm hearing, along with an e-mail from my mom.

Thanks for your concern and support, but not to worry.

As befits the season, Dan spreads the holiday blog cheer.

"Previous awardees are not eligible," he notes, "since the 'Twelve Blogs' becomes in effect of 'Hall of Fame' of active blogs in accounting, personal finance and tax."

I am pleased to say that DMWT made the top 12 in 2006, putting us in Dan's holiday blogging Hall of Fame. You can check out all the previous 12 Blogs winners here.

And keep checking Tick Marks as Dan gets down to his 2007 final 12.

Tallying the 12 Days cost: Also this time of year, PNC Wealth Management issues its annual Christmas Price Index.

The PNC Index is a tongue-in-cheek economic analysis of the cost of gifts given by true loves in the classic holiday song "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

The rise in gift prices -- a 3.1 percent increase to $19,507.25 from $18,920.59 last year -- mirrors the U.S. government's Consumer Price Index, notes PNC. So far this year, the CPI is up 3.5 percent.

PNC also tabulates the "True Cost of Christmas," which is the total cost of items gifted by a true love who repeats all of the song's verses. This holiday season, very generous true loves will pay more than ever before -- $78,100 -- for all 364 items. That's up from $75,122 in 2006. Prior to that, says PNC, 1994 was the costliest year for the true love.

You can read more on the lyrical cost of Christmas and why the prices of certain items rose so much in this story. PNC also has a "breaking news" video (here) announcing the 12 Days Index. I love the ticker at the bottom of the video that lists the prices of the holiday song items.

And here's a video of Kermit the Frog and friends singing the holiday classic. It's a little blurry and you'll need to turn up the volume a bit, but the spirit is definitely there.

Carnival of Taxes coming up: This post almost is a Christmas carnival of personal finance and tax info, but the official 25th Tax Carnival will be here at DMWT on Monday, Dec. 3. 

Check out the Carnival of Taxes section in the right navigation bar. There you'll find links to guidelines, previous Tax Carnivals and our submission page so you can send in your own tax item for this next carnival.

Partridge and pear tree illustration courtesy December 2005 Encore, the weekly arts and entertainment supplement to the Nashua, N.H., Telegraph.