I know it's early, but tomorrow being tax day and all it seemed appropriate to present a list of some of the most important Federal Income Tax limits for your tax year 2008. After all, when is a better time to list these than when you're as familiar as you're likely to get with them?

Personal exemption amount			$3,500
Income at which personal exemption phases out
	Single                    		$159,950
	Married filing jointly    		$239,950
	Head of Household         		$199,950
	Married filing separately 		$119,975
Standard Deduction
        Single                    		$5,450
        Married filing jointly    		$10,900
        Head of Household         		$8,000
        Married filing separately 		$5,450
Additional deduction for the elderly and/or blind
        Single                    		$1,350
        Married                   		$1,050
Income at which itemized deductions phase out
        Single                    		$79,975
        Married filing jointly    		$159,950
Kiddie tax standard deduction     		$900

Now, your job this year is to get out there and earn enough to bump into one or more of these limits. I hope you are successful.

According to Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation:

...it is not practical to contemplate distributing cash rebates until the peak filing season is completed, which in past years has been the very end of May.

And that's if everything goes right. Now add 8-12 weeks' time to process rebate checks and you're looking at July-ish before the big stimulus actually happens.

Think we'll really need it by then?

It's been a decent market this year. It'll likely continue into next year. Nevertheless the market has had its weak spots. If you're like most good investors, you're doing the end of year juggling act. You're working on rebalancing your portfolio; positioning yourself ahead of the trends for the new year; staying on top of gains and losses; and watching the tax consequences of everything you do.

It's not easy. Further complicating the matter is the Wash Sale Rule. The Wash Sale Rule was put into place to prevent investors from gaining a tax benefit by marking stocks to market.

Today's New York Times has an article on how advertisers are paying car and SUV owners hundreds of dollars a month to wrap their vehicles in advertising banners. Truly vehicle advertising is an idea whose time has come.

The more I think about it the more I like it. It's not that I like the vehicle advertising idea for my own self. Rather I appreciate the economics and the basic business dynamic at work here. Let's examine the idea of advertising on cars and SUVs from the points of view of the market participants.

The ad buyer

Four things you need to know to avoid a tax audit

Yes, I'll confess I've had taxes on my mind quite a bit lately. It's been a good year so far. I can't help but be a little concerned that estimated payments and withholding will be enough to keep me out of the penalty box. I'm also fairly diligent about our record keeping. I can't help but think that some of our financial ratios border on the extreme, and we all know it's the ratios the IRS looks at when deciding who to invite in for an audit.

If you've ever been through an audit you'll agree that any time of year is a good time to think about taxes too. If you've been audited recently you're probably thinking about them all year 'round. Spending a little time assessing your tax situation right now can alert you to potential problems while there is still time to correct them and avoid a trip to the auditor.

Friday we covered the new IRS rules about donating money to charitable causes. Today let's cover the new tax rules covering donations of clothing and other household items to charity.

My wife is a saint. No matter how old the joke gets she always laughs at it. Whenever I get a hole in a sock or one of the dogs chews up a shoe, my standard joke is to "put it in the Goodwill bin". She always laughs, acting like it's the first time she's heard that joke.

There must be more than a few people out there who don't joke about ruined items. Rather than throw them out, they must be taking them to the Goodwill anyway. In fact, there must be so many of them that the organizations who receive these old worn out and/or destroyed items must have complained to the IRS. And this year the IRS has responded with a new rule aimed at people who donate garbage to charity and try to claim a deduction for it.

Did you know the IRS has made it tougher this year for all of us good people who donate money to worthwhile causes? This year there are new rules in effect which greatly increase your record keeping responsibilities if you want to take a deduction for charitable contributions.

Until last year, your check book register was all the proof you needed to claim deductions for donations of money you made to qualifying charitible organizations. Starting this year you'll need to be able to provide some form of bank record or other written communication from the charity. Your written proof needs to show the name of the charitable organization, along with the date and amount of your contribution. If you go the bank record route, be sure that it shows the name, date and amount too. Acceptable bank records include canceled checks, bank or credit union statements and credit card statements.

This change probably rings familiar to anyone who has previously donated $250 or more to a chartable cause. Any donation of that size or larger requires written confirmation from the chartable organization in order to make it deductible for the donor.

For an increasing number of us, health care insurance is coming out of our own pockets. Most Americans today who do have health insurance pay at least some part of the costs with after tax dollars. Can these out of pocket medical insurance expenses be deducted on your tax return?

In fact, health insurance premiums are deductible as medical expenses. If they are significant enough in proportion to your adjusted gross income, then you may benefit from including them among your scheduled deductions.

Here we go again with another week. I thought I'd kick off the week with another Monte Carlo Monday.

Depending on who you talk to and how they calculate it, we're right now in the so-called "tax freedom day" area of the calendar year. That's the hypothetical day when your earnings to date equal your total tax liability for the year. So if you're in the 28% tax bracket, as so many are, your hypothetical tax freedom day is 28% of the way through the year. About now, give or take a few days.

It also means that if your tax rate is less than 28% your own tax freedom day was some number of days or weeks ago. Did you know that with a bit of research ahead of time you can not only move your tax freedom day to earlier in the year, but you can enhance your overall return on your investments?

Let's have a look:

So here you are a few years (decades?) out in the workforce and you have a decent, if not great, retirement fund saved up. It's not much, but it's a start. But somehow you get the feeling it's become unmanageable. This is especially true if you've changed jobs a time or three and each time you leave your retirement savings in your old employer's 401(k) plan. Or maybe you've rolled them into your own IRAs under the 401(k) manager's account structure.

Here are four reasons why it's generally better to consolidate those retirement accounts into as few accounts as possible. For many that will mean a single IRA account and a single 401(k).

1. More choices - Many 401(k) retirement savings plans only offer a few choices for mutual funds and other investment vehicles to chose from. Move your money into your own IRA, and you can invest in a much broader array of investments. Stocks, bonds, Exchange Traded Funds or even mutual funds.