The tax law and charitable donations

Charities may get fewer donations under the new tax law.    A study estimated donations could drop by 4.5% or $13 billion.  Under the new law, the higher standard deduction will mean that many middle-class taxpayers will not qualify for the charity deduction.  It is not expected to affect donations from the wealthy.  The article notes that wealthy people donate more to museums and universities while donors of smaller amounts are more likely to donate to social service or religious organizations.

This article discusses tax-related strategies for donating under the new law.

update: Projected impact of tax cuts on deductions

 

Trump and farmers

Trump has sought support from farmers but this New York Times article says that his tax law could hurt farmers.

The article states “New analyses of the tax law by economists at the Department of Agriculture suggest it could actually lower farm output in the years to come and effectively raise taxes on the lowest-earning farm households, while delivering large gains for the richest farmers.”

Trump had lied earlier and said the estate tax was a burden on farmers.  However, only 153 out of 38,328 farm estates paid any estate tax in 2016.

When Trump spoke to farmers in Nashville on Monday, January 8, he said that taxes had been reduced by $5.5 trillion when the actual reduction is $1.5 trillion.

Sad!

Beer commercials

The only commercials you see people my age in are ones for people with medical problems.   I’m not too old to have fun like young people.

You know all those skinny young people you see in beer commercials?  They can’t be beer drinkers.  You cannot drink beer and stay that thin.  This is based on personal experience.

In the 1970s, Iron City Beer had commercials featuring a middle-aged guy, Al Luccioni.     Al looks like he drinks beer.

Trump’s double standard on golf

Trump’s frequent visits to his golf courses have drawn a lot of media attention.  One of the main reasons is his double standard.  He wrote 27 tweets bashing Obama for playing golf.  Trump said he wouldn’t have time to play golf when he was the president but he has been to one of his golf clubs 92 times so far.  His administration claims that he is meeting with members of Congress there but that’s a scam too – it hasn’t happened often.  Sad!

Trump should not tell businesses to fire people

I thought Republicans were opposed to government intervention in private business.  Yet, Trump:

  • Said individuals working for the media (ESPN, the Washington Post, and ABC) and NFL players who kneeled should be fired. Should he be telling private businesses who to fire?
  • Made sure Carrier got a deal to keep jobs in Indiana. (Carrier later cut jobs anyway.)  Is this fair to Carrier’s competitors?

He’s wrong to say things like this but the gutless hypocritical Republicans in Congress won’t stand up to him.  This doesn’t even cover the conflicts of interest from his businesses competing with private businesses not owned by government officials.  That’s wrong, too.  Sad!

Mexican horror films

I get ideas about films to watch from tweets discussing film series shown in New York and elsewhere.  The Brooklyn Academy of Music showed a series of Mexican Horror Films in late 2017. This column has descriptions and commentary.  I have tried to find them on DVDs and Blu-ray discs and have now seen most of them.  I recommend all of the ones I have seen (in italics in the chart below) but especially The Brainiac.  This is one bizarre film about a character that eats brains.

Film title Year Availability
Santa Sangre 1989 DVD and Blu-ray on Amazon and eBay
La Tia Alejandra 1979 DVD on Amazon and eBay
Cronos 1993 Criterion Blu-ray/DVD
Alucarda 1977 DVD on Amazon and eBay
Veneno para las hadas (Poison for the Fairies) 1984 DVD on Amazon and eBay
Canoa 1976 Criterion Blu-ray/DVD
El espejo de la bruja (The Witch’s Mirror) 1962 CasaNegra DVD
El Vampiro 1957 CasaNegra DVD
La maldición de la llorona (The Curse of the Crying Woman) 1963 CasaNegra DVD
El barón del terror (The Brainiac) 1962 CasaNegra DVD

The CasaNegra DVDs are excellent but are out of print.  They are usually good transfers of the films with fine special features.   They are available on eBay.  Some are also available at Oldies.com.  CasaNegra also made DVDs for other films not on the list above: The Living Coffin (El Grito De La Muerte, and The Black Pit of Dr. M.  There is also a sequel to El Vampiro called El Ataud Del Vampiro which CasaNegra bundled with El Vampiro.  The CasaNegra DVDs are all from the late 1950s and early 1960s and are generally in black and white.  The Criterion Collection always does an outstanding job and their discs contain many supplemental features.

More on Mexican films:

https://twitter.com/Carlos_Film/status/1850596218889728351

NFL Overtime

I have a proposal to change the NFL rule for determining who gets the ball to start overtime in NFL games.  Instead of a random selection by coin flip, the ball should go to the team that had the ball at the end of the fourth quarter.  They should also get the ball at the spot where it was at the end of the fourth quarter.  The team with the ball has earned the right to keep the ball and field position.