Pasadenan's Discussions

Allowances are taxable; reimbersment per mile in accordance with schedule C milage cost, and reimbursement per week for having vehicle on a job site would be perfereable to "allowance". But if a company owns (or leases) and maintains a vehicle and provides the insurance, and provides a company credit card for the gasoline, and you will be employed long term, and you given authorization to use it for any personal uses, that likely is better; But then you would need to log personal miles separately for the corporate tax filings.It appears in any case you are loging the business and personal miles separately; or at least logging one of the two. I've looked at the "depreciation" method of tax deduction, but find that the mileage method usually works out better in the long run.  If we start with depreciation, we cannot shift over to the mileage method. 

Rather than just "depreciation", it is "actual expense".  This is very tedious for record keeping. Since the IRS gets forms submitted both ways, their cost per mile each year is usually in the right range and is much easier to work with. 

And I thought Ls was an abreviation for the word "lies".  The sales people know they are lies; and probably most of the public does too. Why is it that where-ever they are "selling" is the "right location"?  I even find problems with some of the so called "best" locations. Why is it that the country is considered a "bad location"?  I would much rather live further away from all the noise, smog, congestion, traffic, collissions, etc. Why is it better to own land regardless of taxes?  In some areas you may pay for the property 25 times over in taxes.  If you are not getting "benifit" out of the property, why pay the taxes?  And what about all the maintenance for property you have no intention of using? And why is assumed that all land goes up in value at the same rate?  What good is a plot in the middle of the desert with no roads and no water supply?  What about properties with spilled gasoline and abandoned fuel tanks?  What about property with lots of asbestos and lead mixed in the soil?  What about property with uranium and plutonium scattered through it? What about properties that are located in the transmission path of high power microwave transmissions? Some "land" will always be more of a liabity than an asset. 

Forgot about a few other land liability issues:Mudslide areas, especially above a major highway.Mudslide areas where your structure is at the bottom of a hill where the hill belongs to someone else. Major earthquake fault lines directly under property. 7 year flood plain area. End of an airport runway.Nextdoor to an airport runway or major traintracks, or... Next door to a uranium enrichment plant or nuclear reactor. Adjacent to a "military target" such as a nuclear command base or nuclear missile launch site. Attractive nuisance area adjacent to high traffic public area, thus many people tresspassing and getting injured. Habitat for a protected endangered species that is not exactly "safe" for having at your back door. At some point some of these liabilty issues will likely mean that you could not pay someone to accept the title of the land even if you paid them. 

Lumber costs?  Good reason to buy "new housing construction"?Look at the "trash" that they used, pieced together in Mexico to minimise costs.  This "scrap" is normally not considered good for anything but burning.  This is not something you would find at any of the local building supply stores.  And what about the environmental impacts of all that glue? If lumber costs are a real issue for your purchase consideration, buy something built in the 1920's or before and get some quality lumber instead of the trash hidden in the walls of most present day construction. Normally for that trash scrap, you have to pay someone to haul it away and pay a local landfill to accept it.  I see no benifit in owning scrap trash materials.  If you want that kind of "trash" there is no scarcity of it at the local landfills. 

The nice thing about Hydrogen Peroxide is that it does not damage plastic tubing, is not harmful to people, it kills and removes mold and other micro-organisms, but just turns into water as it ages.  You don't need to worry about rincing it out thuroughly. I forgot who recommended it to me, and I have no idea what concentration would be needed for a tub. Hydrogen Peroxide may not help with calcium or mineral deposit build up.  But it seemed that it rinced the tubing clear on the fountain and the calcium on the surfaces just wiped clean.  I have no idea if additional servicing needs to be taken on the jets themselves. 

Water down "my equity"?  My equity at purchase is the "down payment"; and in a falling market, it drops from there.  It will water down my "neighbor's equity" if my purchase price is less than his.  Still, in the long run, it is the other market forces that determine equity, not initial purchase price. (Yeh, I know Zilow uses purchase price in their Z-Estimate calculation, but it is not nearly as important as the relavant recently sold "comps"). 

I prefer the 3-musketeers as they don't have the Caramel. I think Mars named them backward; 3-musketeers should be for the one with 3 incredients, and Milky-Way should just have the fluffy milk chocolate covered with dark Chocolate...  I have no idea why Milky-Way included a Caramel since I see nothing in the Milky Way to suggest such a thing; and I have no idea why 3-Musketeers only has 2 incredients instead of 3... But it is way too late to be altering the names now.  I just have to remember they are backward. But never get the "minitures" there is just not enough fluffy milk chocolate to make it even similar in taste or texture. And those "dark cocolate mint 3-Musketeers" is a "misnomer"; it is nothing by a York Peperment Patty in a different shape and has nothing to do with the trade name other than it is made by Mars. 

Perhaps my dictionaries are just out of date or something? I've never seen a dictionary that didn't define marrage as:"a legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife", though the specific wording may vary some. But if the State of California marries several thousand same-sex couples, even if there is a federal discussion and resolution on the issue, what happens to all those marrages if the Federal Government still disagrees with the Judges of a couple states? 

Mary's Lamb was named Jesus, and the Lamb was sacrificed for Atonement. The flesh and blood of the lamb tasted pretty good too, even though we were told not to eat the blood.