Don't Mess With Taxes

If you ever skim the right and left columns of the ol' blog (are they still called nav, short for navigation, bars?), you might have noticed a couple of new items in the Horn tootin' section there to the left. Last week, Don't Mess With Taxes was included among the Top 100 Accounting Advice Blogs, as well as being named a Top 40 Business Blog, Saving Money category. I'm thrilled and grateful for the honors. Now back to work to continue to deserve the plugs! Want to tell your friends about this blog post? Click the Tweet This or Digg... Read more →

What a nice way to start a Monday! In catching up on my weekend tax reading, I discovered that the ol' blog made Career Overview's 2010 list of the 20 Best Blogs for Tax Advice. Thanks for the recognition! I'm thrilled to be cited for doing something that's so much personal fun. Yes, I'm a total tax geek. And I'm honored to be included in such stellar tax blogging company.Related posts: 2009 Plutus Awards Top Tax Blog finalist FINS/WSJ Top Five Accounting Blogs TaxProf's Top 10 Tax Blogs MauledAgain's 10 Favorite Tax Blogs BloggingSuit's Blogs We Like Want to tell... Read more →

It's Tax Twitter Tuesday time again! It sorta sneaked up on me, what with all the health care reform hubbub and the rapidly approaching tax filing deadline. So this month's T3 is going be a big shorter than usual. That, however, doesn't diminish its tasty Twittery goodness! So here goes. Given that most of us have been paying more than usual attention to Congress of late, let's start with the folks on the tax-writing committee. @WaysMeansCmte Our hearing has concluded. Thank you for clicking in. If you missed it, you can find information here http://go.usa.gov/i3W @WMRepublicans Says Camp, the IRS... Read more →

As I mentioned earlier this week, Don't Mess With Taxes has been nominated for The Plutus Award as a top tax blog. In my giddy nomination announcement (I'll say it again: It's a thrill just to be nominated!), I also threatened promised to let you know when you could help determine the winner of each of the many Plutus Awards categories. Now's that time. Flexo at Consumerism Commentary, creator of the awards, explains The Plutus Awards genesis and the voting procedure for the ultimate winners. If you're so inclined to give the ol' blog a click, thank you! You can... Read more →

Wow! What a nice way to start a week. I've just learned that Don't Mess With Taxes is a finalist for 2009's best tax blog. The honor comes via The Plutus Awards, brainchild of Flexo at Consumerism Commentary. The Plutus Awards, whose name was inspired by the Greek god of wealth, was created to recognize the best in both blogging and financial products. Finalists were announced today. I am honored to find the ol' blog in such fine tax blogging company as Joe Taxpayer, Good Financial Cents, Taxgirl and My Dollar Plan. Not to sound like those Hollywood types who... Read more →

Every year I swear I'm going to do some podcasts here on the ol' blog. Then tax season arrives and I get swamped. Thank goodness for Flexo and Tom. In addition to being podcasters extraordinaire at Consumerism Commentary, this tax season they're recording spots for TurboTax's blog Tax Break. So I was jazzed when Flexo and Tom invited me to be part of the program. It's always fun to literally talk taxes. Even better, they edited our conversation so that I sound really cool discussing why and how to adjust your payroll withholding. Thanks guys! Related posts: New year, new... Read more →

Tax manuals with personality. That's how the Wall Street Journal's Yoree Koh describes tax blogs that, "with their pithy analysis, can be a great to way make sense of regulatory changes and acronyms." To that end, Koh recently selected The Top Five Accounting Blogs. Appearing at number three on the list is, ta-dah!, Don't Mess With Taxes. Here's the blurb from FINS.com, the newspaper's new finance sector career site: Don't Mess With Taxes: Though tax professionals hardly need tax advice, the colorful news items and perspective dispensed by Kay Bell, a self-proclaimed tax geek and native Texan, makes this site... Read more →

Last week, I wrapped up The 12 Tax Tips of Christmas, but my dozen is far from alone. For years, Dan Meyer of Tick Marks has been evaluating tax, personal finance and accounting blogs and presenting readers with his list of 12 he finds worthy of note. I was honored to make Dan's list in 2006. And in the holiday spirit of sharing, and in order to get out as much good word about money blogging as possible, Dan doesn't double up from from year to year. This year, his fifth edition of the Twelve Blogs of Christmas includes seven... Read more →

Sorry for missing Tax Twitter Tuesday last week. I was up in D.C. slapping lawmakers around ... if only! I was finishing up my term as a member of the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel. But since were close to Capitol Hill, some of my fellow TAPpers headed over to the Senate one evening to watch part of the health care debate. Are we a lively group, or what!? So T3 is a week late, but not short of interesting tax tidbits from the Twitterverse. Since we've already been waiting almost seven full days, let's get to it! @SusanEJacobsen Drink, Drive, Crash,... Read more →

Later this morning I'm heading to Washington, D.C., for the annual meeting of the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP). It's always great to head back to the nation's capital and see old friends, both those on TAP as well as the folks the hubby and I knew when we lived in the D.C. area. The one downside of the trip is that the TAP organizers really crack the whip and keep our noses to the IRS improvement grindstone! Meetings start way earlier than I'm used to getting up and after we wrap up in the evenings, we have dinners. I can... Read more →

Actually, it's happy belated birthday. Things were so crazy last month, between preparations for the coming tax-filing season and our ongoing home repairs, that I totally forgot the ol' blog's fourth birthday. The big day officially rolled around on Nov. 14. But on that Saturday about a month ago, I was busy blogging about the tax troubles of an old movie star (sorry Zsa Zsa, but it's true, both on the age and tax fronts) and a former political pundit. I usually follow the adage that age is only important if you're cheese or wine. But Don't Mess With Taxes... Read more →

Looking for a way to get your weekend off to a taxalicous start? Sure you are! Then you've got to check out The Wandering Tax Pro's WHAT’S THE BUZZ? TELL ME WHAT’S A HAPPENNIN’. It's a regular Saturday (and Wednesday) feature from my tax blogging colleague. And I am honored that he found so many of my tax ramblings worthy of inclusion in today's edition. Thanks, RDF! Want to tell your friends about this blog post? Click the Tweet This or Digg This buttons below or use the Share This icon to spread the word via e-mail, Facebook and other... Read more →

Welcome to Blog Action Day 2009, where thousands of bloggers worldwide are focusing on climate change issues. What better way to counter adverse climate change effects (aka global warming) than to turn to our planet's ultimate energy source: the sun. Solar power is the cleanest of all green energies. According to the Department Energy's Web site, the sun generates enough clean energy in one day to provide a year's supply of energy for your home or office. The photovoltaic cells, or solar cells as they also are called, collect energy from the sun's light, transferring the electricity directly into the... Read more →

What a fun idea! ESPN should televise a National Tax Bee, a la the annual National Spelling Bee broadcast. That's the suggestion of Mary O'Keeffe, who blogs at Bed buffaloes in your tax code. "The popular stereotype of a tax professional paints them as bland and boring, robotic and devoid of personality," writes Mary. "Reading tax pro blogs has certainly convinced me otherwise." As tax pros worthy of our television attention, Mary proposes a lineup of Robert D Flach, who blogs as The Wandering Tax Pro; Kelly Erb, aka the blogosphere's taxgirl; and The Tax Lawyer's Blog author Peter Pappas.... Read more →

In Share the Moment and Spread the Wealth, the Ping column in today's New York Times, Brad Stone looks at our incessant, innate need to connect and share. He's talking about bloggers, but if you want to get all existential about it, he could be talking about the human condition in general. But for the sake of simplicity, let's stay within the blogosphere. That's what Stone does, looking at the myriad ways to share your blogging wisdom. He notes that your parents' instructions to share has grown into a big business (actually several big businesses). While the article has much... Read more →

What are you doing on Oct. 15? If you got an extension to file your taxes, you might be frantically filling out your 1040 that day. But Oct. 15 is also Blog Action Day, or BAD. On that Thursday, thousands of bloggers will focus on one issue that's important to the world. The 2009 topic is climate change. You say your blog doesn't deal with ecological issues? That's not a problem. In 2007, the inaugural Blog Action Day topic was the environment. I blogged about the various environmental tax breaks available that tax year. Last year, the unifying issue was... Read more →

Being a good Texan, I'm partial to roundups. Teague, Texas, Post Office Mural "Cattle Roundup" by Thomas Stell, Jr., 1940; TE Photo, April 2009 So you can imagine how thrilled I was to learn that my look at some doctors' support for a potential federal soda tax made the latest PF Bloggers' Weekly Roundup. Thanks to Joe Taxpayer for taking the lead on this trail blog drive. Now all y'all readers, giddyup and go on over there for the rest of the Grade A herd of financial offerings! Read more →

The number of personal finance blogs out there (here?) is astounding. And more seem to show up every day. So how do you keep track of all them? You don't have to. Pinyo is doing it for us at Greatnexus.com. Not content simply to keep penning his Moolanomy Personal Finance blog (along with his many other online endeavors), Pinyo has launched this cool new online aggregator. There is, of course, a Greatnexus personal finance collection, where you'll find, so far, three pages of blogs and Web sites offering thoughts on money management, saving, earning and now, taxes. Yes, I'm very... Read more →

I know that blogs are supposed to be more personal, but I really don't feel all that comfortable talking about myself. True, I've parceled out bits and pieces of information about myself periodically here on the ol' blog. I've always figured that's plenty. But then Brian Roger of MyVenturePad, the online business community, dropped me a note. When Brian asked if I wanted to help the site kick off its Blogger of the Week feature, how could I say no? So I offered some scoop about myself and Brian pulled it together into a very nice piece. If you're interested,... Read more →

I've admitted it many times: I am not that technically inclined. That's why I use Typepad. It has a support system that's been pretty darn helpful as I've learned about blogging on the fly over the years. Well today, the support staff helped me discover where in the heck my TrackBacks had gone. I always enjoy checking this nifty linking system that lets me see which of my fellow bloggers find what I have to say somewhat useful. But about a month ago, I noticed that my TrackBack feature wasn't showing any new ones. Naturally, I was dismayed at this... Read more →