| A.
R. Kakhsaz Company
an accountancy corporation
Member
American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants
International associates:
Tavana & Co.
Chartered Accountants
Toronto, Canada
Tel.416-229-2221
|
The U.S. government's latest annual
budget in billions of dollars:
| Defense/homeland security |
529 |
| Domestic and foreign aid |
398 |
| Interest on federal debt |
247 |
| Medicare and Medicaid |
592 |
| Social Security |
581 |
| Federal employee pensions,
farm subsidiaries, benefits to the poor, etc. |
301 |
| Total |
2,648 |
84 cents of every dollar the government spends is
committed before the President and Congress even have at it. That's
the amount that goes to the untouchable elements: interest on the federal
debt, defense and homeland security, and "entitlements," such as
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Why do people say:
"Life is short?" What does that mean? Life is the
longest thing anyone does! What can you do that's longer?
Estate taxes:
In 2004 some 65,000 estate tax returns were filed with the
IRS. That's down from 66,000 in 2003. Many estates weren't
taxable. Only about 31,300 or less than half of the returns filed in
2004 were taxable. Most of these taxable estates represented the
rich, not the super rich. For 2004, more than 22,200, or more than
70% of all taxable estates were valued at less than $2.5 million.
And only $1,328 were valued at $10 million or more. In recent years,
the number of taxable estate-tax returns represented only between one to
two percent of total adult deaths each year.
Chocolate is its own reward!
Taxable estate-tax returns
filed with the IRS by size of the estate in 2004:
| Less than $2.5
million |
22,205 |
| 2.5 to less than $5
million |
5,630 |
| 5 to less than $10 million |
2,166 |
| 10 to less than $20
million |
808 |
| $20 million or more |
520 |
| Total |
31,329 |
For more of the Generalist, please visit our website
at ARKCPACOM.
|
theGeneralist,
a one-page monthly publication of the accounting firm of A. R.
Kakhsaz Company, is in its 12th year of providing information,
presented fairly and accurately, from sources we can depend upon and
trust.
If
you're going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small
country.
Alternatives to
Internet: Agitated by the U.S.
government's influence over a global resource, and antipathy toward
Bush administration has driven Germany, China, and the 22-nation
Arab League to start building alternatives to the Internet.
"The Internet is no longer the kind of thing where only six
guys in the world can build it," says Paul Vixie, 42, a key
architect of the U.S.-supported internet. As people come
online in developing nations that don't use Roman letters -
especially China with its 1.3 billion people - alternatives can
build critical mass. Concern about U.S. oversight increased
last summer when the U.S. Commerce Department said that it had
received complaints from Christian groups over the new domain-name
suffix, .xxx, to be used for pornographic Web sites.
Incidentally, to bring attention to the deepening fault lines, Paul
Vixie recently joined the German group that are building an
alternative to the Internet.
Cannibal: Someone
who is fed up with people.
Poetry
on President Bush's tax overhauls:
I'm
dreaming of a new tax code
To get the headlines off the war
We'll
ditch some deductions,
Add tax rate reductions,
And push war talk out the door.
I'm
dreaming of a nex tax code
Then maybe polls will treat me right.
I can make my last three years
be bright
If tax reform, I can ignite.
We see more in numbers
than just numbers...
Ali R. Kakhsaz, CPA, MAcc
www.arkpca.com
|
