Thanks - I efiled last year, guess I'll do that this year if USAA offers TurboTax for free again. I just downloaded forms and instructions to do a penciled-in rough estimate while I'm waiting for the 1099-INTs to come in. It's crazy - we're not even itemizing, we've got 2 new schedules this year and it took me a couple of hours to go through the instructions and do the schedules to find out we qualify for the "standard" $1000 real estate tax deduction the $800 "pay to work" credit without adjustments. I thought our taxes were supposed to be getting simpler - I pity the people who are trying to figure out if/how much they qualify for all the new credits Obama put out last year. And I still have to figure our state tax (CT isn't a "piggyback" state)!

I'm sorry for your loss, vickij. When my father died, my brother took the deduction on the items we donated because it was more beneficial in his tax situation than ours. However..... my DH is now telling me that was not *proper* although to my knowledge, my brother has had no issues with the IRS - probably because the donation was not significant enough to trigger any IRS alarms. According to my DH, you must take possession of the items at least until the estate is settled, possibly longer, before you can donate as yours and take a deduction. Otherwise, the deduction rightfully belongs to the estate. PLEASE check this out with a CPA or your tax adviser - my DH is a business owner and has a lot of experience with various tax situations but is not an expert.

Available again this year (for 2010, not 2002, this time) ... limits about $25,000. single and $35,000. married. I was pleased with myself last year, in having arranged my affairs (via substantial charitable and some political contributions) ... ... to reduce my Federal tax load to zero. And the provincial liability was low, possibly nil, till I got down to the recently-initiated Health Levy and had to pay a few hundred for that. But I should not complain ... as I made substantial use of the healthcare services, for nil or minimal cost, during this past year. And I used to say that we should all be willing to pay a portion of the cost of running the country ... ... and then light fires under our legislators when we believed them to be running it/them improperly! At least ... we can do that, most of the time, without getting banged on the head for our trouble. Or locked up. ole joyful

Recently a number of (mainly seniors) have been using a certain type of investment (unit trusts) that paid quite a high rate of return, some of it tax advantaged in the recipient's hands, plus some of it return of part of one's originally invested money. Such companies that structured themselves to pay out most of their earnings to shareholders were allowed to escape paying corporate tax. Some people who owned a somewhat different type of investment, stocks of Canadian companies, paying a much lower rate of return felt that they were being unfairly treated, and quite a few were leaving the type of investment that they'd been using to buy the other type. So the government changed the rules of calculating tax on the second type of income relative to 2006, with a view to encouraging a number of taxpayers to stay put. Until 2005, a single "taxpayer" who'd earned somewhere around $27,000 - 30,000. of solely that kind of income had a couple of types of credits work to allow them to have their tax liability reduced to zero. The differing method of calculation in 2006 allowed the level of the single "taxpayer's" income from solely that type of income to increase to $46,345. before becoming liable to pay one cent of income tax ... except the $600. Ontario Health Levy in this province. Would that my Member of Parliament's office were to notify every constituent annually of all the changes to the tax code, especially ways that some fortunate people could avoid paying tax at all up to over $45,000. ... ... but I'm not holding my breath, waiting for such a day! The person who told me of it was a C.A. who'd been an accountant (I think controller) of a substantial local company, prior to his retirement (with no pension) a couple of years ago. We've attended a monthly study group learning about investments for over 7 years (sometimes travel together to the meeting) ... I've learned a lot in that group. The government recently changed the tax rules relative to the first type of investment ... not allowing the corporations to avoid income tax, even if they agree to pay out most of their income. The value of that market lost billions overnight ... I can send any of you interested some delicious cartoons related to that! Recovered a substantial portion of it, later. In the light of that ... they may change the rules again next year relative to the second type of income, to increase the rate of income tax on it to more or less previous levels. Good wishes for learning more about the effective use of your income and assets. ole joyful