Congress Mucks Up Tax Filing Season at the Last Minute

Happy New Year! I’m back from my winter break, which I spent with my brother and my sweetie in Baja California, snorkeling and getting tan and feeling a little sorry for those we left behind in colder climes.

I feel sorry also for people starting to fill out their 1040 forms this year — which were out-of-date before the ink dried.

The IRS have published a brief guide on how to take those deductions that Congress extended at the last minute in 2006: the state and local sales tax deduction, the tuition and fees deduction, and the educator expenses deduction.

War tax resister Barb Kass writes about an agonizingly inappropriate (and possibly passive-aggressive) Christmas present she got from her father — he paid off the six-year tax debt that she had racked up during her resistance. (The good news is that she believes she was able to convince him to cancel the check.)

Thanks to Radical Progressive Carnival and to Taran Jordan at Strike The Root for plugging The Picket Line while I was away.