According to Republicans in Congress, the apparent answer seems to be that it’s more important to oppose this mosque than it is to help the families and survivors of the 9/11 WTC bombings.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), would provide medical monitoring to those exposed to toxins at ground zero, bolster treatment at specialized centers for those afflicted by toxins on Sept. 11 and reopen a compensation fund to provide for the economic loss of victims.

And it would be paid for entirely by closing a tax loophole that allows FOREIGN companies that do business in the U.S. to escape U.S. taxes.

What did the Republicans in Congress decide about this bill to help victims of 9/11?

According to the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, the bill "creates a massive new entitlement program, exposes taxpayers to increased litigation and is ‘paid for’ with tax increases and potential job losses.”

Way to GO Republicans! You don’t support helping victims of 9/11, but you DO support allowing foreign corporations to avoid U.S. taxes!

Could anything be more cynical than the Republican claims about how terrible the NYC mosque is, in light of the Republican refusal to commit to helping the actual victims of 9/11?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0710/House_GOP_leaders_911_first_responders_aid_bill_a_massive_new_entitlement_program.html
And, even though those victims suffered every bit as much as any U.S. combat soldier, a lot of the people HERE seem to AGREE that the United States owes them nothing!

Cynical, hypocritical Republicans and conservatives–Do you also believe we should deny veterans’ benefits to our troops after they come home from the battle field? If you don’t, then why not support 9/11 victims WHO HAVE SUFFERED JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE?

What the Socialist Dems don’t want you to know is the fact that this bill sets up a huge new entitlement program that will be paid for by higher taxes on all of us. That means it will hurt businesses and us working folks. The Dems could have paid for the bill by other fiscally responsible means, but they chose not to and fill it full of pork to include medical for illegal aliens. They would rather tax you and me and try to make cheap political points than do the responsible thing for the country. So, who is really against the 911 responders. The party that proposes a fiscally responsible and effective method, or the party that grandstands on a contrived, fiscally irresponsible Bill that hurts more than it helps? This is just another lame attempt by the Socialists to set up another entitlement program at the nations expense, knowing the GOP would oppose it,
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0710/House_GOP_leaders_911_first_responders_aid_bill_a_massive_new_entitlement_program.html?showall
thus the Dems get the opportunity to once again demonize them in an effort to make themselves look better in the run up to the mid-term elections. That’s it, plain and simple, not that the cool aid drinking liberal Dems would or could admit…….This rabid dog — Weiner — needs to be thrown out of office. He is a disgrace to the Institution and should be thoroughly rebuked by his constituents, that is, if they can see the truth in spite of his theatrics…….. o_O
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O_GRkMZJn4

If a home has been in litigations for 2 years and was ordered to sell by the court, can i buy the back taxes and take possession of the home or does the suet still stand and the home will be auctioned? I am in KY. Unless there is another way to grab it up before auction. Keep in mind the owner is no where to be found.

If there is a court order to sell it has to be sold on the open market, either auction or on the MLS for at least 30 days. It is illegal to circumvent an open market. There are bound to be other liens in addition to the tax lien, they all have to be satisfied legally, not just the one.

I bought a home in 2008 and received the $7,500 first time home buyers tax credit. My wife took a job in a different city and we are forced to move. However, we have overpriced our house because we can not payback the credit on our home. Seeing as anyone who bought a house in 2009 or 2010 that received a free $8k doesn’t have to pay theirs back if they don’t sell the first 3 years of ownership my question is this…….,I was wondering if anyone had heard of any legal proceedings to grandfather in the 2008 credit to have the same guidelines as the 09-10 credit?

This would be a different situation if we were going to be living there, but we need to move. However, we really can’t move because we’re forced to pay back the "credit" the government gave us.

So if anyone has any info, please let me know. I am not interested in getting yelled at for "whinning" about what we’ve been giving or how "lucky we are to get this in the first place". I am only looking for whether or not anyone has info on this and/or where I could to find some.

Thanks.

The older tax credit and the more recent one were set up and administered separately. There is no basis for any grandfather clause, each credit was given under a different set of rules. No litigation would be possible, the government has no obligation to make tax credits match from year to year.

A few years ago, I had some money invested in VOIP Inc (initially traded as VOII , then VOIC ) . It was about $500 initial investment, and became worth $0.01 and I have been holding on to it for a few years to save as a loss for tax purposes when I need it. This year I had some sales with a 50% gain so I figured I would sell the shares this year to cut back on the taxes I’ll have to pay for those profits.

However, when I tried to sell the stocks at sharebuilder.com, it says this "A security with the symbol VOIC is not recognized as a valid listed security. Use the Find Symbol option if you need help finding the symbol."

It still shows up in my portfolio as an open position, as VOIC . How am I going to be able to claim a loss if my broker is still calling it an "Open" position? It isn’t a realized loss until the position is closed.

It looks like the SEC revoked their registration on July 14, 2009. http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2009/34-60300.pdf

Yes – I know VOIP Inc was a bad investment – that’s a whole other story, so if you answer please stick to the topic of claiming a loss on a stock that had it’s registration revoked.

You need to sell it. Talk to your broker about how to do this. They may have a procedure for closing out positions like this.

Being removed from an exchange is meaningless for tax purposes because there was never any requirement that they be listed in the first place. They haven’t been doing SEC filings so they can’t be listed on an exchange, so, they’re trading in the pink sheets. As long as the company still exists and you have a position in it, then there is still a possibility of profit and you can’t claim the loss.

I bought property at a property tax auction in washington state in 2005. I put it up for sale and we have potential buyers.The buyer checked in on the property and found out that there is a litigation lean from some lawyer in 2001 and leans proir to us purchasing the property from some maintenance company witch shoudl have been cleared up before the tax auction sold the property.When we bought the property we were told that the purchase price was for all debts from past owner.The prior owner is dead.We never new anything about this until we put it up for sale.We called the treasury Dept and got the run around saying that none of the leans can be removed.We have been paying on the property and now the property is worthless we can’t sell it or do anything with it.Can someone direct me to what to do. and what kind of lawyer I need to help clear this up.

If you need an aggressive lawyer see http://locate-power-of-attorney.info
check out their FAQ to understand how they operate

Here is Madoff’s strategy:
1. He enticed charities, which are organizations, who would be less hostile if he were exposed, unlike individual investors who lost their all in all, who would be outraged to violence. To fortify his concealed fraud and theft, he got into the directorate of the particular charity, or one of his family did, so that if anything was brought up, he’d get ear of it and either silence it or cover it up specially.
2. He screened CAREFULLY every individual investor-to-be, for several purposes: (when I mean "SCREENING CAREFULLY" for these purpose he did extensive, and in depth checks of credit, family members and family backgrounds, court litigation records and even surveillances of activities of persons who wanted to invest with him, before accepting or rejecting their requests to invest. The purpose:
a. To create the appearance of exclusivity and class, so that whatever invester was accepted, would be grateful and less likely to look deep down and question what was going on.
b. To investigate the specific investor –
b. The reason he hired investigators to go into every detail of the potential investor’s business activity, credit background, marital involvements etc and if there were indications of tax fraud or divorce fraud, he’d take them in as investors to see if his financial activities were such that the money he was giving to Madoff was concealed tax fraud, or illegally obtained unreported income that plenty of monied people have, and who seek places where the monies can remain concealed in a larger fund composed of many investors. In applications to invest, Madoff asked where the funds the potential investor wanted to turn over to Madoff were situated at the time of the request, Madoff knew that if the fraud ever was found out, these investors with shady assets that the IRS would immediately check into if their names were brought up in any claims against Madoff, that these people would just go away and take their loss rather than face criminal or civil charges by the IRS or federal prosecutors. So Madoff rejected investors who had clean backgrounds but for those with questionable sources or sites of present wealth, he had a ready made gag over the mouths of many, many individual investors who he ripped off, knowing they would never open their mouths to regulators if his schemes were exposed.
crooks never get away with it. sooner or later their guise cracks, usually from a disgruntled insider who blows a whistle. Madoff knew the scheme was about to fall apart so he had his sons pretend to be whistle blowers so they wouldnt be charged with crimes and go down with him (fatherly love)
1 day ago

the support will show when the lists of claims doesnt match the amount missing. Then regulators will have to go into the day by day activity that can unearth to provide you with your demand for proof. Just be patient,. Only the tip of the iceberg is seen now

You also forgot to mention that he setup a shell accounting firm that had only one client, Madoff.

I would like to purchase a non-warrantable condo (due to a minor litigation in the building) that has been foreclosed on. I would have to pay cash as the litigation will not close before the November 30th first time home-buyers credit expires and I would like to get it at a reduced price. I plan on securing a traditional mortgage once the lawsuit has been cleared, but until then I only have approximately 60,000 of the 150,000 necessary for a proper offer (The parents’ loan would supply the rest).

I realize it cannot be considered a gift as it is much larger than 12,000 and I will be paying the monthly payments/paying off the loan once I get a mortgage. I am worried of the tax repercussions for myself/my parents as the loan will only be open for 2-6 months.

to be safe, write up an agreement on this loan, terms, dates, time etc and be sure to state some amount of interest
This probably will not ever happen but it is safe to state this interest because if it is not, it will be imputed by IRS at some time in the future
one never knows how long a law suit may last and your purchase seems to be contingent on this event

I am sure law is what I would like to pursue as well as my purspose. I am passionate when it comes to people being taken advantage of and I am just looking for my path. I like consumer law because companies make millions and billions of dollars. They sell faulty equipment, medicine, false hope, etc. It breaks consurmers spirit of hope. Family law for me is biased to the male’s point of view, in child custody, especially when it comes to divorce. Tax law; it is a shame how certain individuals( the tax enforcement agency with three letters) can prey on small business but big companies can have a million times more profit than a smaller company, who knows where thier charity money goes; probably to an offshore bank and the gov want to float their capital and keep them afloat by their non verbal way of threatening the gov……..and they get bailed out., Prosecuter and litigation would be a good venue too. Litigation would allow me to express my point of view and my charizma in the court. Me, a prosecuter………………I would make judge in about 10 years, because I would hand out sentences like water in the summer time. These criminals have no regard to people’s lives………or the people who love people they are harming………….people killing people. What can somebody do so much that would drive someone to kill, rape, rob, ect. them. Life is tthe most valuable thing on this earth and criminals treat other’s lifes like a piece of paper. What are do you think I will be most effective at by what I have told you thus far?????

Please be aware of what you are proposing on getting yourself into. Please do more research first. Reminder: We are in a World-wide Recession. Consider career paths that have available jobs.<<<<<

Warning> Jobs in the field of Law are drying up fast!! This is just not a good field to invest time and/or money into. This is a SHRINKING, crumbling, and dying vocational field. Many reasons. Many people today (mistakenly) think they can do their own legal work, thanks to the Internet. Also, we simply already have way too many Legal Professionals – we have an absolute glut!! ("Legal Professionals" includes, but is not limited to: Attorneys/Lawyers, Paralegals, Legal Assistants, Legal Secretaries, Bailiffs, Court Reporters, etc, etc)

There are no jobs in this vocational field. My family, coworkers, friends, acqaintances, etc. are being laid off left and right in this vocational field.

Employers (usually law firms) in the field of Law today want employees with degrees from traditional colleges/universities. Those "certificates" you see advertised aren’t worth the paper they are printed on – they are generally scams. (I found this out the hard way.)

Cost of law school to be lawyer, approx $150,000+.
Be prepared to take on a lot of debt.<<<<<<<<<
You are going to need to take a job that will let you pay off your educational loans, in addition to your living expenses.

Even if you finish law school, you won’t be able to find a job when you are done. Since this vocational field is shrinking, many new attorneys/lawyers are, themselves, having to work "down" as Paralegals, Legal Assistants, Legal Secretaries, Bailiffs, Court Reporters, etc, etc, to simply try to keep some of their bills paid <<this would be your competition. And the competition is fierce!!

Now… the law schools know this, but they won’t tell you the truth >that the job market/economy is just saturated with way too many Legal Professionals. Instead the schools will feed you a fairytale and will lie to you. The root of the problem is we have too many law schools. We are in a recession, and the schools are fighting for their own survival – they will tell students anything to get to the students’ money. (Which is why they won’t tell you the truth about the job market for the field of Law.) And these schools continue to recruit and churn out even more graduates………….Remember: law schools are BUSINESSES – their top concern is making money for themselves.

If you don’t believe me, then just do a search here on Yahoo Answers to see what other posters are saying about the current status of the field of Law. Call some local law firms – ask to speak to the Manager of Human Resources – ask them if they are hiring; ask them what they think about job availability in the field of Law………………

In the book "So You Want to be a Lawyer?" by Marianne Calabrese and Susanne Calabrese (ISBN 0-88391-136-1): "The United States has more lawyers than any other country in the world. About 38,000 students graduate >each year< from the 200+ law schools in the United States. The competition is very keen for jobs and clients." – Even Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (who served on the U.s. Supreme Court for more than 20 years) says there are too many lawyers. (9/14/2008)

Check out these websites: http://informeddecisionmaking.blogspot.com
http://calicocat.com/2004/08/law-school-big-lie.html
http://abajournal.com/news/triplt_bad_news_for_law_students_three_firms_aX_summer_associate_programs/
http://abajournal.com/news/as_rio_tinto_saves_millions_other_corps_will_outsource_too_counsel_says/
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/02/03/dont-try-to-dodge-the-recession-with-grad-school/
(A link to a website does not constitute endorsement.)

If you want a job when you are done with your studies, consider and look into the fields of >>>Healthcare or Information Technology! I spoke to a career counselor from Jobs and Family Services, and HE told me that these areas are where the jobs are, and future job availability! and scholarships!

Good luck.

(This is based on my current knowledge, information, belief, and life experiences. This was intended as personal opinion, and not intended to be used as legal advice. Please be careful and do your research.)