Ours was utterly quiet, although not unpleasant :). Both kids were off doing their own NYE celebration so the house was nice and calm. We ate dinner, chatted, then he went to sleep early and I read for awhile. Boring? Maybe but also a moment to cherish being secure in our lives and with so much for which to be grateful. Actually, our New Year's reminds me of the lyrics to one of my favorite Carly Simon songs, Misfit: There are plenty of late nights If you want to stay up for them You'll just want to find yourself a friend And tie a couple on in a night spot Draw pictures of your soul, win the jackpot Pour tears in your beer It's hip to be miserable when you're young and intellectual In a bit you'll admit you're a misfit Come on home with me We'll turn on the TV About 10 o'clock we'll turn off the light Not every man was born to stay up late at night There are plenty of boats to catch If you notice all the sails in the wind But you better look hard my friend In case you catch a ride on the wrong one In the distance is the one you belong on Oh the water is wide It's hip to be miserable when you're young and intellectual In a bit you'll admit you're a misfit Come on home with me We'll sit under a tree And if you get the itch I'll supply the scratch Not every man was born with a boat to catch It's hip to be miserable when you are young and intellectual In a bit you'll admit you're a misfit A misfit

equinecpa: You wrote: >>Two cents from a CPA: ..... Just the inconsistencies in results tells me you are making input erorrs -I'd count on it. The programs are not calculating the return differently -you are somehow inputting it differently. ========================================== That is not true. Compare TaxAct with TaxCut where you've bought and sold both taxable and tax-exempt bonds with acrued interest. You will find TaxAct understates the final income and therefore the tax. Several years ago I went thru the calculation line by line with both using identical input. (Both on computer and paper). I pinpointed the exact mistake TaxAct was making. I wrote it all up clearly and concisely and sent it by US Mail to TaxAct headquarters which was in Iowa. They acknowledged my analysis; said they'd fix it. They never did. A couple years later I checked it out again and this time emailed em. This time they denied the error. The wording of the reply showed that they did not understand the problem. I wouldn't trust TaxAct with anything beyond simplest of returns; ie wages only with a standard deduction.

As I said ... ... if you're interested in giving out interest-free loans ... ... let me know where the line-up starts, so that I can get into it before it gets too long. I won't borrow to invest in consumer items, as that means that I eat stuff this year that I won't pay for till next year, which means a reduction in next year's income due to paying for this year's eating. Not only that - I have to pay rent to the lender of the money for the use of his/her money. However - I may borrow to invest and expect to be doing so, soon, as the markets stay low. I've made three purchases in recent months using cash and have another to do soon. Plus I'm being forced out of one holding, which includes Canada's largest phone co., as it's being sold and taken private. That will free up some more cash in a few months. My bank told me a few months ago that they'd charge me prime rate, 6.25% on a fully-secured (by certificates of mutual funds and stocks) Line of Credit. I calculate that I can borrow to invest in high-quality stocks at almost no net cost. As interest on loans for investment is deductible, if I'm in 25% tax bracket, that reduces my effective cost to just under 4.75%. Core stocks, the kind that I'd planned to use for retirement, often pay about 3% dividend, which has been (Canadian) tax-advantaged for years and just became more so, meaning that I'll have about 2.5% in hand after the tax is paid ... which reduces my effective cost to just under 2.25%. Suppose I borrowed $10,000.00 15 years ago, agreeing to pay interest-only, and had done that (which I don't like doing - I want to pay down some of the principal as I go along ... I'm using this calculation for illustration). If I went in to pay off the loan now, how much would I have to pay? Right - exactly $10,000.00. And it will buy a lot less now than 15 years ago when I borrowed it. With inflation running at 2 -3%, that means that I borrowed the money at just about no cost. A couple of days ago, the bank says that they'll charge me at prime interest rate, now, 5.25%. Deduct tax at 25% is about 1.3%, moving down to slightly under 4%. As above, I receive about 2.5% after-tax from the stocks in which I invest, taking me down to just under 1.5% net cost. But inflation is running at 2 - 3%, and some expect it to go higher, somewhat due to increased fuel costs, that affects most stuff that we buy, incl. strawberries from Mexico in January). So it looks as though I'm gaining, at these rates. Suppose you put $10,000. into the bank 15 years ago, enticed (seduced?) by the bank's highly touted guarantee that, apart from the rent on the money, they'd repay every dollar that you'd lent to them, at the end of the contract. They never mention the corollary to that guarantee - that they won't pay one dollar more, either. Unfortunately for you U.S. folks, the inflation rat went into the bank and chewed off a corner of every dollar that you'd lent to the bank, every year that they'd held it. It'd have to be $5.00 bills for us Canadians, as our Loonies and Toonies are made of long-lasting, rat-tooth-hating metal. Actually, the rat wouldn't find your money in the bank - they lent out about $8.00 for every dollar that everyone deposited. Money in their till is like dollar bills in your wallet/under your mattress - they ain't workin'. So the bank took your $10,000. 15 years ago and lent it to me. Now, you want your money ... and I come to the bank to pay off my $10,000.00 loan ... that they then pay to you. I paid my loan with lower-valued dollars, and you got the same number of lower-valued dollars. I gained from inflation - you lost! Have a weekend that includes some effort expended to learn how money works - an excellent hobby - that pays well! ole joyful

Thanks Mike, I'm actually asking for a friend whose a/c and heating system are being replace due to a repair that needed to be done on the a/c and it is a really old system, they are opting to go ahead and replace it all since the repair would have been a couple thousand dollars. I am asking for her and they didn't even know there was any such thing as a tax credit. So I will tell her that they can probably qualify for one and to look into it to make sure she doesn't lose out on it. It's very expensive to replace the existing system...like heart attack expensive. HAHA!