an accountancy corporation

                                   

Member
American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants

NOW AND THEN: I'm speechless as for now. Let's remember then: From mid-1995 through mid-2000 the U.S. economy grew at a phenomenal average annual rate of 4.5%, the unemployment rate fell to 30-year lows of below 4%, the inflation rate slipped down to under 2%, and technological advances surged in all areas of information, communications, biotechnology, and the like. All helping boost productivity growth to an average rate of almost 3% a year. And lets not forget governmental budget surpluses at all levels and trouble-free fuel and energy prices and supplies: The good-old prosperous dot-com days of the 1990s!

IRS IS "REAL LEADER IN E-GOVERNMENT:" The IRS has now launched a system to let businesses and individuals file their returns, pay taxes and check the status of their taxes via the Internet at the website of the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, www.eftps.com.

POETRY ON TOTAL ELIMINATION OF ESTATE taxes by 2010: 
"For years, estates of wealthy men were taxed. 
    The sort of thing that spoils a nice goodbye. 
The tax will disappear by 2010.
    And then the rich will find it safe to die."

ANTI-OBESITY DRUG: A new study shows that mice injected with famoxin lost significant weight without serious side effects.

RISING MONEY-MAKING VENTURES of tax-exempt organizations: Taxable profits from unrelated income of exempt groups rose about 18% to $1.4 billion for 1997 following increases of 31% and 39% in the two prior years. Total unrelated business income tax, or UBIT, for 1997 rose 12% to $418.4 million. The related rules can be highly tricky, and there are important exclusions to UBIT.

INTERDEPENDENCE of the world economies: The $33 trillion world economy, which grew at a raging pace just last year, has slowed to a crawl as the U.S., Europe, Japan and some major developing countries undergo a rare simultaneous slump. Many regional economic powers - Germany and Italy, Brazil and Mexico, Japan and Singapore - have become economically stagnant, defying expectations that growth in other countries would help compensate for the slow-down in the United States. "We have gone from boom to bust faster than any time since the oil shock of 1973. When you screech to a halt like that, it feels like getting thrown through the windshield." theGeneralist, a one-page monthly publication of the accounting firm of A. R. Kakhsaz Company, is in its sixth year of publication.

WHEN WAS O.J. SIMPSON'S TRIAL? Remember? Was it in fall of 1995? 1996? Or 1997? Here's a clue: At the same time Intel introduced the 200-megahertz computer chip. Another clue: Bill Clinton was in his first term in office. This is the story: The companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market, which as the whole have symbolized "the New Economy," have not made a dime since the Simpson's trial in fall of 1995. Their massive losses, totaling $150 billion over the past year, have now wiped out all of their profits from the technology stock boom of the late 1990s. This will undoubtedly make the road back to their previous levels of profitability longer and harder than any and all estimates that have been widely mentioned.

PAY THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TAXES: That's your right. As it is your tax-accountant's job!

AS YOU KNOW, THE NEW TAX-CUT LAW HAS A self-expiring feature that will end it in the year 2010. There's much talk in Washington DC on proposing legislation that would remove the self-expiring provision, to make the tax cuts permanent.

LOS ANGELES BUSINESSES THAT PARTICIPATE in a pilot e-commute program are eligible for a federal tax credit. The program is a part of the National Air Quality and Telecommute Act of 1999, as an effort to reduce air emissions.

WE SEE MORE IN NUMBERS than just numbers… We see opportunities for you. 

Ali R. Kakhsaz, CPA, MAcc

www.arkpca.com