It’s tax Tuesday.
I heard that if you don’t itemize you can still deduct money you have given to Haiti relief. l was wondering on what line do you put that amount on the 1040?
-Tom Roman, Lake Worth

Sorry, but that’s not possible, sais Randi Grant, director of taxation and personal financial planning at Berkowitz Dick Pollack & Brant.

Only itemizers can deduct their contributions. But one benefit of a law President Obama signed Jan. 21, is that you can take this deduction on your 2009 return.

My daughter worked for an establishment that went out of business last year. She has not received her W2 form. What does she do if the company fails to send it and nobody can be reached at her former employer.
Abe Raphael, Sunrise.

She should complete form 4852, which is a substitute for a W2. It is available on the IRS website, www.irs.gov and look under forms and publications.

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The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors’ Consumer Education Foundation, TD Ameritrade, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine and FiLife.com are collaborating on the Your Money Bus Tour.

Which means Certified Financial Planners will answer your questions, for free, at two upcoming events in Palm Beach county.

You can meet with a planner:

Monday, Feb. 22, Palm Beach County Main Library, 1 to 3:30 p.m. The library is located at 3650 Summit Blvd., West Palm Beach.

Tuesday, Feb. 23, Palm Beach State College at Florida Atlantic University Campus, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is located in the Humanities and Technology Building, 3000 Saint Lucie Ave., Room HT-103 in Boca Raton.

To learn more, go to www.yourmoneybus.com for up-to-date schedule information.

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The Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service and its community partners are hosting a day of free personal financial education and consultation.

You can get a free credit report, fill out a form to search for unclaimed money, shred your financial documents, learn about preventing foreclosure or how to deal with identity theft, educate money-smart kids and more.

There will also be free tax preparation for the first ten people who register for this service.

In the afternoon, the winners of the Piggy Bank Beauty Pageant will be announced. The contest is open to children 12 years old and under.

Participants will also be able to have brief consultations with certified financial planners.
The MoneyWi$e Expo takes place Saturday, Feb. 20, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

It will be held at the Clayton Hutcheson Agricultural Services Center, 559 North Military Trail in West Palm Beach

For event details, to register for free tax preparation and/or a financial planning session or to receive a Piggy Bank Beauty Pageant entry form, call the Cooperative Extension at 561-233-1742 or go to www.pbcgov.com/coopext

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What happened to the bandwagon? The one that started rolling for reform of Wall Street, banks and credit cards.

Today’s online New York Times and Wall Street Journal both report that Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said talks with Republicans have broken down over the subject of financial industry reforms.

The consumer side of the debate has been engaged in a full-court press to save at least one important provision: That all financial advisors, brokers and anyone else, be required to be fiduciaries.

That means they must put their customers’ interests ahead of their own.

This week, consumer advocates pushed and pleaded.

What’s on the table from the House on this issue is so weak, exempts huge swaths of the consumer lending industry and won’t help much.

What the Senate was looking at was better.

And now, a new bill is being drafted.

Meanwhile, credit card reform can’t get here soon enough (Most provisions of the bill kick in at the end of February).

And rules to rein in bank overdraft fees still allow banks to charge you thousands of dollars every month if you mess up with your checking account.

Where’d the momentum go?

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...I want to feature them in my next column.

Is your spouse or partner irresponsible with money?

Is he or she a tightwad?

What’s the most irresponsible thing you’ve done with your money…and what was your partner’s response?

Money matters are often a difficult subject for couples. Tell me what's gone wrong or how you make it work.

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Joel Greenblatt has made it easy to figure out how he invests.

The hedge fund manager, adjunct business professor at Columbia and best-selling investment author wrote a delightfully simple book about it five years ago.

The Little Book That Beats the Market lays out his value investing formula, why it works, and its past track record.

Since then, if you wanted to know which stocks he’d pick, you can, for free, check out his web site MagicFormulaInvesting, where, once your register, you can get a list of stocks that currently meet his criteria.

And now, if you want more guidance and hand-holding, Greenblatt is offering online professional money management.

Since last fall, Greenblatt, who is the managing partner of Gotham Capital, and K. Blake Darcey, who pioneered online brokerage services at DLJ Direct, have been managing money according to Greenblatt’s principles through FormulaInvesting.com. They have amassed $65 million under management since getting started last October. The minimum investment is $25,000.

I chatted with Greenblatt during his recent visit to Miami.

My main question: Since you’ve told everyone how to invest and sold so many books doing so, why does anyone really need you to do it for them?

His answer boils down to: This is not as easy as it looks.

Continue reading "Great investing book, but will online money management catch on? " »

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Now this is impressive: Ask a few million people to do something small and it adds up..

Almost 2.5 million people texted $10 pledges for Haitian relief to the American Red Cross in seven days, the largest number ever to take action for a mobile giving campaign, according to the group Mobile Accord,

With a few keystrokes, $25 million goes to where it is so badly needed.

Remember, you can use your phone bill as proof of the donation for tax purposes. Donations for Haiti relief can be deducted on your 2009 returns, the one due April 15, according to a law signed by President Obama last week.

You can find out more at www.mGive.com.

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Does anyone really need an “Entertainment Planner” to figure out how much it will cost you to have friends over to watch the Super Bowl?

Like it takes a lot of planning to put out the salsa and chips? I thought a trip to the 7-11 would take care of it.

The Entertainment Planner is a “tool” that Visa is offering up in its attempt to tap into Super Bowl frenzy.

I tried it out to see what a money management “tool” from a credit card issuer might produce.

It was less than impressive. It's just a calculator. And it told me my budget, $125, is less than the average of $144.

Hmmph. Have you tasted my jambalaya? You know how many my recipe feeds? I’m here to say I’m not a cheapskate and I don’t let my guests go home hungry.

But back to Visa, which at every opportunity is congratulating Saints Quarterback Drew Brees, who promotes Visa's financial education program.

The online version is not a bad program. It has football analogies to the max, but it's a decent set of lessons on personal finance, even on the subject of how credit cards work and how not to get into trouble. Visa says 25 states have adopted it for high schools.

You can play it for free at www.practicalmoneyskills.com/football

But the entertainment calculator you can skip. Party planning isn't a top problem that most people need to solve.

If you can’t add up how much you’re spending on a party, I’m going to guess that means the party is already underway and you don’t care anymore.

Which is the way it is, these days, in my hometown of New Orleans.

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It's Tax Question Tuesday. Here are a few that you sent in and some answers.

You can submit your tax questions online at www.sunsentinel.com/itsyourmoney or leave a message at 954-356-4628

I have been paying my 35-year-old son’s rent and food bills because he cannot find a job. Can I claim him as a dependent even though he does not live under my roof. I also send my grandson to college and lives with me. Can I deduct college fees?
Annetta Boer, Lantana

You can claim your unmarried son as a dependent because you provide more than half his support and he’s a qualifying relative, says Phillip Sroka, a certified public accountant and partner at Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra in Miami.

As for your grandson, you can deduct college fees only if you claim him as a dependent and you can only do that if no one else claims him. As long as he is under age 24 and is a student, you can claim him if you provide more than half his support.

I own a condo that I have been renting out since January 2009. Can I deduct the principal and interest on the mortgage payment? What about taxes and maintenance fees? And depreciation? Do I have to depreciate the property? I want to sell it after the market gets better.
Jennie, Hollywood

You can deduct the interest but not the principal, Sroka said. You can also deduct taxes, maintenance fees, utilities, insurance and repairs as well.

As for depreciation, you are allowed to depreciate the basis of your property – which is its original cost plus any improvements – for the building portion only, not the underlying land.

I just received in the mail form from the IRS for estimated taxes for next year. I don’t understand why they are sending me this form as I am retired and I filed a simple return last year.
Joe Hosford, Fort Lauderdale

“Just because the IRS sent him a form does not require him to fill them out,” Sroka said.
You would only need to make estimated tax payments if you expect your income tax liability to be $1,000 more than any amount you’ve had withheld from pension payments or any source you have for income.

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Too Big to Fail? If all the financial reforms being considered in Washington focus only on banks, Robert Pozen,
chairman of the mutual fund firm MFS Investment Management, says we will not be targeting the true source of the financial crisis.

Pozen recently published Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System.

His book looks forward and explains what caused the crisis. Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s new memoir On the Brink, which was published today, is more a look back. MFS manages more than $187.5 billion.

I spoke to Pozen last month. Some of his ideas:

-The key to preventing another mortgage mess like the one we’re in now begins with not allowing the mortgage broker or whoever originated the loan to sell the entire loan ”and have no incentive to look closely at the credit-worthiness of the borrower.”
The next step: Forcing some transparency into the mortgage-backed securities market where he says the structures of the investments are too complicated and opaque.
Third: Reform credit rating agencies so that investors can have confidence in what they say are the risks associated with financial products.

-The key to getting credit flowing again has to do with re-starting the market for pooling loans into securities.

Continue reading "Fix the financial crisis by spreading the responsibility " »

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