The letter I copied above, must not have been read too recently! I kept reading it and thinking--"I don't think ACORN is doing the Census since there are several controversies they are involved in that have called them in to a questionable status." Here's what I found: "The Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN notifying the group that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with the community organizing group for all work having to do with the 2010 census. "Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts," read a letter from Census Director Robert M. Groves to the president of ACORN. "Unfortunately, we no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your many local offices. For the reasons stated, we therefore have decided to terminate the partnership," the letter said. The news follows the firing Friday of two more ACORN employees after new hidden-camera footage showed workers for the group advising a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute how to subvert the law." I thought so! Okay--now that's taken care of, what next? :o)

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.

My young nephews have already told me they want the pants with all the pockets that zip off into shorts. They are about $30 for a nice pair so I'm looking for them on sale. I guess it's a hot cool item for kids to wear right now. My folks have said the same thing - don't buy them anything cause they have it all by now. They did say that we could get them exotic food items. So I'm thinking of going to a specialty store and pick out some items like smoked salmon and cheeses etc. I enlarged a nice picture I took of all their grandkids and put it in a nice quality frame. I then bought several matching frames but am leaving them empty and they can fill them with photos they already have and do a nice grouping.

I have to take a Minimum Required Distribution every year from my retirement account since I turned 69-1/2. However, every year Congress allows an up to $100,000 non-taxable distribution from such retirement accounts to whichever IRS-sanctioned charity or charities you specify. Since we don't even approach using an itemized deduction on our income tax to take advantage of a non-taxable charitable contribution there, but rather have to use a standard deduction, this is a neat way to take advantage of the US tax laws & a win for the the charity I would annually select anyway.