Fundraising from time-immemorial has involved finding someone with a lot of money (a king, a patron, a wealthy landholder) and coaxing him or her to give it to you to finance your cause. Sometimes this has been with the promise of a great return on investment (Columbus seeking funding from Ferdinand and Isabella), artists seeking patronage to ( Read more... )

Working on several tax/pension law related projects at once invites a certain amount of cross pollination, which I think will ultimately be productive. I was looking for the IRS rules on spousal beneficiaries to IRAs and Qualified retirement plans for one class when I found that there are new rules on nonspousal distn's from IRAs/QRPs just passed ( Read more... )

In no particular order:

I am attempting to redeem my income tax street-cred by attending weekly VITA (volunteer income tax assistance) sessions at the lawschool. (on using turbo tax with M, when I asked him a question: "You're the tax lawyer!") Still, telling people they owe the state money is never fun. I much prefer telling people they will get ( Read more... )

The tax code is like crocheting in that if you can read, you attempt to figure it out. I missed two weeks worth of estate tax sessions when I was sick, so I went to see my professor about the best way of making up the material ( Read more... )

I had a lovely meeting with one a practicing transactional attorney today. We met for coffee at a cafe in overland park and talked about her work. I blathered on a for awhile about trying to find a path, etc. She was extremely nice about it and deserves a thank you note. I feel like a idiot, I mixed up all my research, asked dumb questions and ( Read more... )

Committee for Self-Aggrandizement would like to report that yours truly, the Llama llaw-student of llawrence, was today's winner in "Use the internal revenue code to generate a tax figure for our hypothetical family" My figure was about $20 off the actual answer (but the closest of any of the "contestants" who volunteered their figures) so I got ( Read more... )

and probably get eaten by termites or clear-cut logged or burned down ( Read more... )

Learned a fascinating bit of trivia about why the so called "Marriage Penalty" exists in the tax code and why its impossible to get rid of ( Read more... )

I've moved directly from the path to repentance (this morning's interlude in Rosh Hashanah services) to my 1:30pm tax class, the sink of corporate attorney-ness. Except, I'm pretty sure the whole charitable contribution deductions of IRC section 170 flew completely over my head. It might help to actually do the reading before coming to class ( Read more... )

Did my first tax problem. I had to ask M. what an itemized deduction was. He couldn't figure out how it differed from an non-itemized deduction, either. I think I finally figure it out. Will find out for sure in class tomorrow.