PACT (Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking) Law Now in Effect

A bit of legislative trivia.  Note that Cigars are exempt.

The legislation titled “Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act,” was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama on March 31, 2010.

Effective immediately, the U.S. Postal Service® cannot accept or transmit any package that it knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, contains nonmailable smokeless tobacco or cigarettes.

Cigarettes, including roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco are considered “nonmailable” matter, unless the shipment falls within certain exceptions. The acceptance and transport of packages containing cigars is not prohibited under the Act.

Read More USPS.com.

Texas-The World’s 11th Largest Economy

Comptroller’s Economic Outlook

“The Texas economy, the world’s 11th-largest, continues to fare better than those of many other states. But Texas felt the effects of the worldwide recession during 2009. Despite the state’s economy contracting in 2009, Texas’ relative economic advantage should continue as the state and U.S. economies turn around and expand again in 2010. The Comptroller’s office estimates that Texas’ gross state product will grow by 2.6 percent during calendar 2010. The U.S. economy should grow at a slower rate of 2.0 percent during the year.”

Read more of Susan Comb’s remarks.

In support of Entrepreneurs and Small Business

David Brooks column in the NY Times, An Economy of Grinds, emphasises that the economy will continue to creep along until the business climate for “the country’s loners, its contrarians and its narrow, ambitious outsiders”  is “wide-open” with an “atmosphere of general confidence”.  Brooks calls these outsiders The Grinds.

Here’s a link to the article:  An Economy of Grinds.

Traveling Mercies

As  you travel this summer, take care with your credit card.  Joe Sharkey writes that “Credit Card Hackers Visit Hotels All Too Often”:

A study released this year by SpiderLabs, a part of the data-security consulting company Trustwave, found that 38 percent of the credit card hacking cases last year involved the hotel industry. The sector was well ahead of the financial services industry (19 percent), retailing (14.2 percent), and restaurants and bars (13 percent).

Read the full article.

Homebuyer Credit

On June 29, the House of Representatives by a vote of 409–5 approved H.R. 5623, the Homebuyer Assistance Improvement Act of 2010. This bill would provide first-time homebuyer credit relief to taxpayers who can’t meet a key June 30, 2010, closing date.

H.R. 5623 would amend Code Sec. 36(h)(2) to provide that if a written binding contract to purchase a principal residence was entered into before May 1, 2010, the credit may be claimed if the purchase is closed before Oct. 1, 2010. Thus, this extension would allow homebuyers who signed a contract no later than April 30th deadline to complete their closing by the end of September.

The three-month extension of the closing date is intended to provide tax relief for those who couldn’t close on time because of backlogs at lenders and federal programs involved in homebuyer loans. In the words of the bill’s supporters, the three-month extension “will give time for all the new mortgages to be processed and not punish those homeowners who have been delayed through no fault of their own.”

The Senate will likely vote on the bill by July 1.

Donations of Unreimbursed Expenses

May I deduct as charitable contributions expenses that I incur on behalf of a charitable organization that are not reimbursed?

Per IRS Publication 1771:

If a donor makes a single contribution of $250 or more in the form of unreimbursed expenses, e.g., out-of-pocket transportation expenses incurred in order to perform donated services for an organization, then the donor must obtain a written acknowledgment from the organization containing:

    a description of the services provided by the donor

    a statement of whether or not the organization provided goods or services in return for the contribution

    a description and good faith estimate of the value of goods or services, if any, that an organization provided in return for the contribution

    a statement that goods or services, if any, that an organization provided in return for the contribution consisted entirely of intangible religious benefits (described earlier in this publication), if that was the case.

In addition, a donor must maintain adequate records of the unreimbursed expenses. See Publication 526, Charitable Contributions, for a description of records that will substantiate a donor’s contribution deductions.
Example of an unreimbursed expense: A chosen representative to an annual convention of a charitable organization purchases an airline ticket to travel to the convention. The organization does not reimburse the delegate for the $500 ticket. The representative should keep a record of the expenditure, such as a copy of the ticket. The representative should obtain from the organization a description of the services that the representative provided and a statement that the representative received no goods or services from the organization.
Publication 1771 also reviews the disclosure requirements of charitable organizations.

Don’t throw good money after bad

Austin Talk Radio Batters Metrorail

Not a real headline but the discussion was a good reminder of how to NOT make a decision to abandon a project.

Investors are notoriously emotionally involved in decisions that they have made.  It is almost impossible to divorce ourselves from the consequences of important decisions that we have made.  This is called  Loss Aversion.

When we have made a decision such as investing $65 million  in a Metrorail or $5000 in WholeFoods and watch the trains operate at a loss or our stock decline by half of its value, our loss aversion and emotions keep us from correctly considering our original investment as a sunk cost.  Sunk costs are non recoverable costs that force us to admit that we have made a bad decision.

Some decisions require that we abandon our prior investment and invest additional funds that will correct the decision.  One example is abandoning a website that is too expense to maintain but that cost $15,000 for a $1000 out of the box website that works great.

Other decisions require that we look at future operations but on a cash flow basis.  If an operation, perhaps a commuter train, is cash flowing, consideration of the original investment is irrelevant to the decision as to whether to continue or stop the train.  The relevant costs to compare with income from the project are the costs that will end if operations are ceased.

Finally, we might need to consider selling assets that we can’t afford to pay for even though we would lose our investment, especially if we can pay off any debt associated with the property.  Continuing to own an asset with operating losses due to mortagage payments that could be sold is also an example of loss aversion.

How much should you give?

Ron Lieber writes in the NYTimes,  April 30, about alternative computations of the amount to give to charity.    He reports the methods in the Bible and in the Koran.  He quotes Brent Kessel who wrote “It’s Not About Money” , and Peter Singer who wrote “The Life You Can Save.”  He quotes letters from Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest,  to Robert Bridges, both 19th century poets,  in which the priest suggests that his friend give alms to the point of personal inconvenience if he wanted to become familiar with the nature of Christian belief.  Lieber concludes with a call for more readily available payroll deductions such as the United Way facilitates.

Read the full article here.