songs downloaded today

Neil Young - Down by the River
Neil Young - The Needle and the Damage Done
Pink Floyd - Mother
The Temptations - I Can't Get Next To You
The Temptations - Papa Was A Rolling Stone
ZZ Top - Just Got Paid

The top two songs downloaded from me were "Control" by Puddle of Mud, and "Paint it Black" by REM. There sure were a lot of 56K modem users who downloaded from me today. I hope that wasn't because those people thought their dowloads would go quicker.

support the ailing SUV market

Yahoo News

Bush plan gives huge tax break to buyers of big SUVs
Tue Jan 21, 7:48 AM ET Add Business - USA TODAY to My Yahoo!

David Kiley USA TODAY

DETROIT -- Buying big, luxurious sport-utility vehicles could cost a lot less under the Bush administration's economic stimulus proposal, even though a Bush appointee blasted SUVs last week as dangerous fuel hogs.

Small businesses and the self-employed could deduct the entire cost, up to $75,000, from business income the year of the purchase. Normally it would be written off over several years, using a depreciation schedule. Deducting the entire cost in one year considerably reduces that year's taxable income, and income taxes. In some cases, it could result in paying no federal income tax.

A similar deduction in the current tax code is limited to $25,000. Tripling that creates a much more alluring incentive at a time when SUVs are under fire for fuel consumption and safety concerns.

Bush appointee Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (news - web sites), scolded automakers at an industry conference one week ago for not making SUVs safer and more fuel efficient. He told reporters that he considers some SUVs so dangerous he wouldn't allow his family in them ''if they were the last vehicles on Earth.''

A stung auto industry shot back with statistics showing SUVs are very safe in the most common types of crashes.

White House spokesman Taylor Gross said Monday that the provision ''is not designed to favor one vehicle over another, but rather to allow small businesses to buy more equipment and to create more jobs.''

Computers and other equipment do also get favorable treatment in the provision to help small businesses and the self-employed upgrade their hardware. But the language regarding vehicles limits the tax benefit to those with a gross vehicle weight rating of 6,000 pounds or more. That means full-size SUVs and pickups.

As a result, an accountant who'd do fine with a 30-mile-per-gallon compact sedan as a company car could be enticed into a big, 15-mpg SUV instead because of the deduction. Or a real estate agent about to buy a 20-mpg midsize SUV that doesn't qualify for the deduction might opt for a full-size SUV instead, because it does qualify.

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) estimates that the current deduction cuts tax revenue $1 billion for every 100,000 SUVs, and vows to lobby against tripling the amount. ''The market for personal-use SUVs has outgrown the original intent of this tax break,'' says Aileen Roder of TCS.

''When a loophole gives an accountant an incentive to deduct the cost of his luxury SUV, it makes the argument of how ridiculous'' it is, says Jonathan Collegio of Americans for Tax Reform.

During furious SUV sales last month, ''We did have some people coming in saying, 'My accountant told me I better buy something,' '' says Chevrolet dealer Jerry Haggerty in Glen Ellyn, Ill.
____________

If the aim is to reduce the tax "burden" for small businesses, why didn't they just give the tax break for buying *any* car or truck? Why not incentive for buying the proper vehicle for the work? White House spokesman Taylor Gross said Monday that the provision ''is not designed to favor one vehicle over another, but rather to allow small businesses to buy more equipment and to create more jobs.'' What a load of shit.

And can they take advantage of this every year? The article doesn't say if this is a one-time thing, or whether they are still bound by the time constraints of the depreciation schedule.

Can I do this? I own a rental property. I can haul building supplies. Maybe I can write the truck off this year and sell it next year.

Thanks to kricker.

Brad

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/104272248048720.xml

His mother can picture him still -- a computer prodigy who taught himself to program when he was 6, hunched over the keyboard, a programming book in front of him, struggling to pronounce the word "variables."


He let people know what was going on in his life -- "News of Brad" -- but grew frustrated with the time it took to update it; so he wrote a program that would make getting the word out as simple as double-clicking, typing an entry and submitting.


Birth of a subculture In March 1999, he posted his first time-stamped entry. "This is a test . . ." And it wasn't long before dorm friends wanted to be able to post up-to-the-minute updates, too. Fitzpatrick decided to turn it into a Web-based service, jokingly adopted a goat named Frank as a mascot, and LiveJournal was born.