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Comic-con is both a Mecca for the people who love (and dress like) superheroes and villains, and, arguably, Hollywood's biggest marketing event of the year. Should it also be a public charity? By Richard Siklos, editor at large (more)
It's a tough market for selling a house. Maximize your chances of a sale at a good price with these house-staging tips from an expert. (more)
Today's BlackBerry-wielding, expense-account impresario may think he's invented the concept of retiring at work. But such executricks have been around as long as people have labored at tasks they'd rather not perform. Following are some of the greats in the pantheon of tricksters. (more)
Not so Dennis Verkest (pictured at right) the owner of A Chimney Sweep & More. Verkest travels great distances to service his clients he has, logging more than 15,000 miles a year in his Ford F-150 pickup.
Because his pickup is fairly new (2004 model year), conventional wisdom holds that Verkest should take the normal deductions. For a car or light truck, you get a write-off that changes from $3,060 in year one to $1,775 in the fourth year and onward until you've depreciated the purchase price. You can also deduct the cost of insurance, repairs, and - critically - gasoline.
But Verkest chose option two: standard mileage. You can't depreciate the cost of the car or write-off gas. Instead, you take a simple deduction based on how many miles you drive. For 2008 it's 50.5 cents a mile, up from 48.5 cents in 2007. By choosing the mileage rate, his CPA figures, Verkest will be able to increase his write-off by as much as $750 over the normal deduction. "I'll do anything to keep more money in my pocket," Verkest says.
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