From: Bob Osgoodby - bob@adv-marketing.com
The Business Organ for the Small Business Community
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** Featured Article – Things to Know Before Filing Your Taxes from Bill Staton

** Stupid Quotes

** Trivia

** Biz-Tips by Dr. Kevin Nunley – Track Responses

** Brain Teaser

** Quote of the Day

** A Little Levity – Garden Snakes

** Stress Tip by Dr. Rae Baum

** Health Tip of the Week – Rare Complication Revealed In Drug-Induced Labors

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Welcome

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                                                   Had Enough?

Take Back Your Health, Wealth, And Freedom. Start now. Contact Shannon today.
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4/4

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**Featured Article**

Things to Know Before Filing Your Taxes from Bill Staton

Everyone loves a good tax tip.  And now that tax season is in full swing, the IRS and other experts have started to issue tip after tip after tip.  Here's a recap:

Getting a jump on your taxes long before the April deadline is the best tip of all.  To do so, the IRS recommends gathering your records in advance, including W-2s and 1099s.  In addition, the IRS recommends getting the right forms, all of which are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the IRS' Web site, www.IRS.gov.  That site also has some helpful calculators to get you started.

That being said, tax payers should avoid getting too early a jump on their taxes.  With the preferential qualified stock dividend rate, complicated foreign tax credits, lower capital gains rates and other changes over the last few years, many investors are finding that they receive Revised 1099s, or other tax reporting documents, well into March.  If you've already filed your return, this can lead to costs of re-filing an amended return that you may wish to avoid.  The best bet may be to get your tax return all completed, and then hold off filing it until the end of March, to see if any amended 1099s arrive.

Of course, keeping organized, thorough records is the key to filing on time.  The IRS suggests that you can avoid headaches at tax time by keeping track of your receipts and other records throughout the year.  Good record-keeping will help you remember the various transactions you made during the year and help you document the deductions you've claimed on your return.  You'll need this documentation should the IRS select your return for examination.  Normally, tax records should be kept for three years, but some documents - such as records relating to a home purchase or sale, stock transactions, IRA and business or rental property - should be kept longer.

To be sure, some citizens wonder whether they need to file a tax return.  According to the IRS, you must file a tax return if your income is above a certain level and that amount varies depending on filing status, age and the type of income you receive.  For example a married couple, under age 65, generally is not required to file for the 2006 tax year until their joint income exceeds $16,900.  Even if you do not have to file, the IRS notes that you should file to get money back if Federal Income Tax was withheld from your pay, or you qualify for certain credits.

It's also important to choose your correct filing status, of which there are five options.  According to the IRS, your federal tax filing status is based on your marital and family situation.  It is an important factor in determining whether you must file a return, your standard deduction and your correct amount of tax.

Besides choosing the correct filing status, it's important to calculate whether you should itemize deductions or not?  And that will depend on how much you spent on certain expenses last year.  According to the IRS, money paid for medical care in excess of 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI), mortgage interest, taxes, charitable contributions, casualty losses and miscellaneous deductions in excess of 2 percent of AGI can reduce your taxes.  If the total amount spent on those categories is more than the standard deduction, you can usually benefit by itemizing.  The standard deduction amounts are based on your filing status and are subject to inflation adjustments each year.

Also of note, if you gave any one person gifts in 2006 that valued at more than $12,000, you must report the total gifts to the IRS and may have to pay tax on the gifts (if, including prior taxable gifts, in excess of your $1 million lifetime exclusion).  The person who receives your gift does not have to report the gift to the IRS or pay gift or income tax on its value.  Gifts include money and property, including the use of property without expecting to receive something of equal value in return.  There are some exceptions to the tax rules on gifts.

In some cases, a taxpayer may want to consider using a paid tax preparer.  If so, the IRS has tips on its Web site to follow.  Of note, only attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents can represent taxpayers before the IRS in all matters including audits, collection actions and appeals.  Although you might not find that you need the services of a paid CPA or accountant every year, having a relationship established when unexpected opportunities or events occur will make getting timely professional input that much easier.  Someone who knows your income and deduction patterns, and can quickly answer routine questions or research the more complicated issues, may well be worth the price - even in the years when things seem straightforward.

When completing your tax return, make sure that you take your time, double-check your math and verify all Social Security numbers.  Math errors and incorrect Social Security numbers are among the most common mistakes found on tax returns.

And remember, if you are getting a tax refund, consider making an automatic contribution to your IRA; this is the first year that this can be done.

This column is produced by the Financial Planning Association, the membership organization for the financial planning community, and is provided by Bill Staton, MBA, CFA, a local member of FPA.

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Bill Staton, MBA, CFA, America's Money Coach® Chairman,  The Staton Institute Inc. & Staton Financial Advisors LLC  bill@billstaton.com mary@statoninstitute.com Not sure if you need a Money Manager? Take this quick quiz  and find out: http://www.billstaton.com/quiz.htm

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Stupid Quotes

"The government is not doing enough about cleaning up the environment. This is a good planet."

- Mr. New Jersey contestant when asked what he would do with a million dollars.

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 Trivia

In 1994, Michael Kearney received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Alabama. Michael was 10 years old and the youngest ever college graduate. In 1997 Mary Fasano graduated from Harvard University at the age of 89, one of the oldest to ever graduate college.

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Biz-Tips by Dr. Kevin Nunley

Track Responses

Here's an easy way to track response from your ezine ads. Create an email address for each ad, all of which are forwarded to you (your website host can often set this up for you).  You tell from the address where the prospect saw the ad.

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Kevin Nunley provides marketing and copy writing. Read all his
free tips at http://DrNunley.com

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Brain Teaser

What's so special about the following sentence?

A big cuddly dog emitted fierce growls, happily ignoring joyful kids licking minute nuts on pretty queer rotten smelly toadstools underneath vampires who x-rayed young zombies.

Scroll down to find the solution to today’s riddle.

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Did You Know

    You can place a free ad for your business on our website.
        Go to - http://www.adv-marketing.com and click on
                  "Free Classified Advertising"

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Quote of the Day

"Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry."

 - Warren Buffet, Businessperson

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Solution to Riddle

The first letter of each word makes up the entire alphabet in order.

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A Little Humor

Garden Snakes
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Green garden grass snakes can be dangerous, Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes.

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas had a lot of potted plants, and during a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze. It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and when it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream.

The husband who was taking a shower ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it.

About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the leg. He thought the snake had bitten him and he fainted. His wife thought he had a heart attack, so she called an ambulance. The attendants rushed in and loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him out.

About that time the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor man. He volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief. But in relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa, and the neighbor man, seeing her laying there passed out tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches. An ambulance was again called and it was determined that the injury required hospitalization.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed he had been bitten by the snake. She went to the kitchen, brought back a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now the police had arrived. They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the two women tried to explain how it all happened over a little green snake. They called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.

Just then the little snake crawled out from under the couch. One of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table that was on one side of the sofa. The table fell over and the lamp on it shattered and as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog, who startled, jumped up and raced out into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car. Meanwhile the burning drapes had spread to the walls and the entire house was blazing.

Neighbors had called the fire department and the arriving fire-truck had started raising his ladder as they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area.
Time passed. Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was re-built, the police acquired a new car, and all was right with their world.

About a year later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The husband asked his wife if she thought they should bring in their plants for the night.

She hit him in the head with a vase, and he’s back in the hospital.

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Driving home from church one Sunday, the father tuned the radio to a country and western station.

"How can you stand that stuff?" complained his 16-year-old son.

"It's all about lonesome cowboys, gunfights and broken hearts."

Knowing he preferred rock 'n' roll, the dad asked, "Well, what's your music about?"

"That's the beauty of it," the son said. "You just don't know!"

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Contrary to popular belief, most blondes do indeed know the value of a dollar. The other day a blonde from Atlanta had her car break down. The tow truck driver charged her $ 65.00 to take the car to the garage less than 10 miles away.

When she told her husband that evening, he said that the driver had taken advantage of her.

She said, "I thought so. But I made him earn it. I kept the brakes on all the way."

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In a fancy Paris restaurant, there is a magical wish-granting mirror.

But it only grants wishes if you tell the truth -- if you lie, you disappear.

One day, a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead enter the restaurant and decide to try out the mirror.

The brunette goes first.
"I think I'm the smartest woman on earth."

"POOF!" She disappears. The redhead goes up to try.
"I think I'm the prettiest woman on earth."

"POOF!" She disappears. The blonde goes up.
"I think--"

"POOF!"

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You can only live once,
but if you do it right, once is enough.

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Stress Tip
by Dr. Rae Baum

You will find this "Stress Tip Message" helpful to stay focused and on purpose.  You can put this message to work by reading it often throughout the day.

Jump start and take control of your future by staying in the now to make the most of your choices and decisions.

 - Dr. Rae

~ Need help with this "Weekly StressTip"?
Invest in yourself, contact The Baum Group
at http://www.YourStressMatters.com/contactus.htm

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You Know You're From a Small Town When...

You know how to polka , but never tried it sober…

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Health Tip of the Week
by Dr. Earl Mindell

Rare Complication Revealed In Drug-Induced Labors

Anyone who has waited around anxiously for the birth of a child or grandchild knows those days and hours around and beyond the due date can be excruciating. The expectant mother knows—if this is not her first child—that her body is in for quite an ordeal, particularly if she plans to go without pain medication. Or, if she has decided to get an epidural, she might fear that the timing of her labor might make pain medicine impossible or unwise once she gets to the hospital. First-time moms may quake in fear of the pain they have been led to expect in labor and birth, which a female friend colorfully described to me as "like having someone drive a train through your body—really, really slowly."

She may fear that her trusted doctor won't be available when the baby finally decides to make its grand entrance. She may worry about complications or about having the baby before she can get to the hospital. All in all, Nature's schedule for the arrival of a brand-new person—although inarguably one of the most wondrous events humans get to participate in—tends to be... well, inconvenient at best.

Enter modern hi-tech medicine. Women are choosing, in increasing numbers, to circumvent the suspenseful waiting by scheduling the birth of their children—using elective inductions to get things going on the date and time that works best for them. In the United States, the elective induction rate is now around 20 percent. Many women decide on elective, scheduled C-sections to circumvent the whole labor and vaginal delivery process—particularly women who have already had a C-section and are mandated to have another because of hospital policy that forbids attempts at VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesarian).

Messing with Mother Nature has always seemed like a bad idea to me, and it seems like an especially poor choice with regards to the procreative process. This process has taken millions and millions of years to evolve to its current state, and when we go messing around with it for no reason other than our busy schedules or anxieties about this natural and beautiful process, we're bound to get bit in the hindquarters. I won't even go into the topic of elective C-section or the huge escalation in the use of this procedure in hospitals over the past few years. That topic alone would take up more space than I have in this newsletter. Here, I'd like to talk about a Canadian study that reveals a rare but deadly complication of drug-induced labor.

According to the study, pregnant women who have their labors induced with drugs are almost twice as likely to have an AFE (amniotic-fluid embolism). In AFE, a leading cause of maternal death during childbirth in developed countries, amniotic fluid escapes into the mother's bloodstream, blocking the flow of blood to vital tissues. The researchers examined the hospital records for over three million deliveries in Canada over a period of 12 years, doing statistical analysis to see whether there were any factors that could predict who might be at risk of this condition. Thirteen to 24 percent of cases of AFE are fatal to the mother. These Canadian scientists from McGill University in Montreal found that AFE struck almost twice as often in women who had medical induction of labor. Cases of AFE that were fatal happened 3.5 times more often in women who had been induced. Put another way: for every 100,000 women who were induced—and 17 percent of the mothers in the study were induced with medication—up to five women had AFE and up to two died from it.

With 20 percent of pregnant American women being induced with drugs, 30 to 40 women could be experiencing AFE each year as a result. Women 35 and older, who have had multiple pregnancies, C-sections, uterine rupture, forceps deliveries, fetal distress, or eclampsia are also at elevated risk of AFE.

I know that today, childbirth is far safer than it has ever been. I do appreciate the technical advances that have made maternal and fetal death during childbirth extremely rare occurrences—when in days past, women died in childbirth quite often, and many newborns didn't make it. But I also believe that we should use these interventions when they are medically needed, not for the sake of convenience.

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To learn more about how Dr. Mindell can help you get into the best shape of your life, visit: http://freelife.com/Sites/keith/Redir.cfm?page=/info/nutrition/nutritionhome.cfm

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Copyright – 2006

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