Westchester Herald

Current Commentary: A Tax System That Promotes Prosperity BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

When you don’t ask the right questions, your chances of reaching the right answers are not very good. That is why this year’s showdown over tax rates is going to leave businesses burdened with counterproductive taxes, no matter who wins in November.

The only thing we are really debating is how heavy that counterproductive burden will be. This is unfortunate. A more intelligently designed tax system could help build the more productive, forward-looking economy that both parties, and most voters, say they want.

Current Commentary: A Prosecutor Crosses The Line BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

The justice system is supposed to protect crime victims. Occasionally, however, prosecutors’ power leads them astray.

Kenneth Kratz, the  district attorney for Calumet County, Wisconsin, sent repeated texts to a young woman whose boyfriend he was prosecuting for allegedly trying to choke her to death. The texts included propositions and inappropriate comments such as “Have u ever been spoiled by someone? I mean like being taken care of and spoil him with attention in return? Without ever saying no?” The woman, 26-year-old Stephanie Van Groll, eventually complained to the  police.

Current Commentary: Human Flags at the Top of the World BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

The town of Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, has temperatures below freezing nearly all year. Its  Inuit name, Aujuittuq, means “place that never thaws.”

But, for around 150 people, Grise Fiord is home.

The families that settled Grise Fiord never chose to live in that arctic desert. They were stuck at the top of the world to serve as human flags.

Current Commentary: Reggie Bush Steps Up And Goes Down BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

Image via Wikipedia

 Last Friday, I sat in the Boise, Idaho, airport, watching people stream in from across the country dressed in Boise State Broncos gear. College football season is in full swing, and even the airlines are profiting.

But for former college football star Reggie Bush, it has already been a rough season. He may be the only American male who had a worse September than Barack Obama.

Current Commentary: Can Superman Rescue Parochial Schools? BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

For more than 80 years, the Holy Spirit Catholic School in the Bronx has stood across the street from Public School 26.

I attended P.S. 26 in the 1960s, but for me, Holy Spirit might as well have been on Mars. I never set foot in the place. I only knew a few Holy Spirit students, and they all happened to be girls. They were older than me and were the sort of older girls who thought little boys required scientific study, like bacteria or bugs. I kept my distance.

Current Commentary: The ‘Southwest Effect’ Expands Its Reach BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

Yesterday’s announcement that Southwest Airlines plans to acquire AirTran is welcome news for travelers, but it probably made Delta executives choke on their Monday morning coffee.

Just last week, Delta lost its place as the largest domestic air carrier when shareholders of United and Continental agreed to merge those companies under the United banner. Not that Delta has been on top for very long. It claimed number-one status only after its 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines.

Current Commentary: Defending Privacy Against Border Defenders BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

Interstates 89 and 91 intersect near White River Junction, Vt., about 90 miles away from the Canadian border. A mile or two farther south, U.S. Customs and Border Protectionofficers occasionally set up roadblocks on I-91.

I have been stopped several times in recent years as I drove between my homes in Vermont and New York. Each time, a uniformed agent politely inquired about my  citizenship. I was always swiftly waved on my way after I replied, “American.” Being white and fluent in English probably didn’t hurt.

Current Commentary: If Things Are Getting Better, Why Are We So Miserable? BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

 You have heard by now that the recession is officially over. Do you feel like celebrating?

Probably not. This week’s announcement from the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed what we already knew, which is that the Great Recession has been over for quite a while – officially, now, since June 2009. The downturn that began in November 2007 therefore lasted 18 months, making it the longest U.S. economic contraction since World War II.

Current Commentary: The 2012 Election Campaign Gets Underway BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

 You might think the 2012 presidential campaign will get underway on the morning of Nov. 3, when both parties survey the results of the midterm elections. But I think it is safe to say that the race for the White House has already begun.

President Obama got things started earlier this month with his heavily publicized speech in Cleveland, in which he attacked the Republican opposition and criticized House Minority Leader John Boehner, by name, eight times.

Current Commentary: Tax Collectors In Funny Hats BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

On Labor Day, as I drove south on New York’s beautiful  Taconic State Parkway, I crested a hill to find a state  police cruiser stopped on the shoulder. Just beyond the trooper were three more  cruisers, each with lights flashing, each parked behind an unhappy motorist.

I had stumbled across a classic speed trap.

Current Comment: The Great Firewall of Harrisburg BY Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®

Inspired, perhaps, by the rulers of China and Iran, the powers that be atHarrisburg University of Science and Technology are giving the school its own “great firewall.”

For one week, students, faculty and employees at the Pennsylvania campus will be unable to reach social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook, via the campus network. But the college’s goal is not to suppress information. The goal of the exercise, according to Provost Eric Darr, is to prompt the school’s approximately 570 students and its faculty to critically evaluate the role that online communication plays in their lives.

Current Commentary: As Primary Smoke Clears, Election Scene Looks the Same BY Larry M. Elkin

For all the noise and drama about Tea Party upsets and anti-incumbent fervor during the primaries, the outlook for the upcoming congressional elections appears very much the same as it did early this year.

Most of the pundits have since come around to the view I expressed here in February that Republicans are likely to win control of the House of Representatives and tomake significant gains, though probably not take control, in the Senate.

Getting Closer to Consensus on Gay Rights

In one remarkable summer, three federal judges in three very different parts of the country have struck down laws depriving  homosexualAmericans of rights everyone else takes for granted. This is what an emerging consensus looks like.

Current Commentary: A Redundant Choice, A Wasted Opportunity By Larry M. Elkin

President Obama could have sent an exciting message to the business community last week by choosing, as his top economic guru, someone with a deep understanding of how the private sector works.

Instead, Obama looked no further than his own inner circle to select  Austan Goolsbee to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.

Currrent Commentary: A Dumb Idea For Smart Phones BY Larry M. Elkin

 Do you wish you could use your cutting-edge, Internet-enabled smart phone to receive FM radio broadcasts, like a transistor radio that you (or your parents) owned decades ago? Me neither.

Well, shame on us for being so selfish and narrow-minded. A coalition of music companies and, not surprisingly, broadcasters is asking Congress to require every new cell phone to include an FM receiver, whether consumers want it or not.

Current Commentary: Obama Offers to Hold the Football BY Larry M. Elkin

President Obama desperately wants American businesses to play ball. His latest economic game plan is aimed largely at tapping into nearly $2 trillion reportedly parked in corporate coffers.

But when the  president calls on executives to get in the game, they immediately picture Lucy offering to hold the football for Charlie Brown – with themselves as the round-headed fall guy. Business leaders do not trust Barack Obama. He has only himself to blame.

Current Commentary: The Facts About Eggs and Goats BY Larry M. Elkin

 Recently, I opened my refrigerator in Palm Coast, Fla., and discovered that my brother had left behind a carton of organic eggs. A package insert told a story about one of the egg farmer’s favorite goats, whose death left the farm’s other goats sad.

The story had a dateline of Massachusetts, but the carton had a Texas license number, and it had somehow made it to Florida. That’s quite a journey for a half-dozen eggs.

Current Commentary: The Roth IRA Conversion Clock is Ticking BY Paul Jacobs

With only a few months left in 2010, time is running out to take advantage of a valuable and often misunderstood opportunity.

Beginning this year, all  taxpayers are allowed to convert their traditional  IRAs to  Roth IRAs, regardless of their income levels. With tax rates scheduled to increase next year and the  stock marketdown year-to-date, anyone who hasn’t considered converting all or some of their IRA should be taking a long, hard look at this opportunity before the end of the year.

Current Commentary: A 100-Year Promise (Picture Frame Not Included) BY Larry M. Elkin

Not long ago, I paid $25 at an antiques store to buy an old $1,000 bond that now hangs, framed, in our office in Scarsdale, N.Y.

The beautifully engraved bond was issued by the Lehigh Valley Terminal Railway Company, a newly organized subsidiary of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, on Oct. 1, 1891. It recites that the railroad“acknowledges itself indebted to the bearer hereof in the sum of One Thousand Dollars in gold coin of the United States of America of the present standard weight and fineness, of which sum the said company agrees to pay in like gold coin to the bearer” on Oct. 1, 1941.

Current Commentary: The Kids Are Alright; Parents Will Be, Too BY Larry M. Elkin

Across the country, families have been packing their children (and a roomful of their children’s possessions) into trucks and SUVs and heading for college. It’s a big day for parents and students alike.

For the colleges, though, it’s just one more start to one more school year. Some of them wish the parents would just go home already. This, at least, is the gist of a recent New York Times article.

Current Commentary: The End Of Our Company-Paid Health Insurance BY Larry M. Elkin

 For 15 years, I have taken pride in paying the full cost of health insurance for every full-time Palisades Hudson employee who wanted it. This month marks the last time I will do that.

Beginning in October, our 20 employees will make their own decisions, and their own arrangements, regarding health coverage. They can stay on our company’s plan, but they will have to pay the entire cost – ranging from $574 to $683 per month – themselves, through payroll deductions. Though I am raising everybody’s salary by $3,000 per year, or $250 per month, as a partial offset to the loss of company-paid health coverage, those who remain on the company plan will have a significant new out-of-pocket expense.

Current Commentary: The ‘Risk-Aversion’ Misnomer BY Larry M. Elkin

 Financial advisers often discuss investors who are “risk-averse.” But people, on the whole, are not terribly averse to risk.

We are, on the other hand, extremely averse to loss.

Current Commentary: Today’s Miserables Confront Javert’s Three-Strikes Law BY Larry M. Elkin

It cost $47,102 to house an inmate in aCalifornia state penitentiary in 2008. For 13 years, Gregory Taylor was one of the people Californians paid to keep locked up.

Taylor was jailed for trying to break into a church kitchen to find something to eat.

Current Commentary: One Less Reason To Flee New York BY Larry M. Elkin

August 26, 2010.

As we conclude this hard-times summer of the “stay-cation,” New Yorkers who are contemplating  divorcecan finally end their marriages in a civilized way, without leaving home.

Until this month, New York was the last state to require a divorcing spouse to prove that the other party was guilty of cruelty, adultery or abandonment. Every other state has had  no-fault divorces for decades. As a result, New Yorkers had to suffer through needlessly prolonged, contentious and expensive marital litigation.

Current Commentary: Rooting For Gridlock And A Tax Hike BY Larry M. Elkin

 You don’t hear this very often, but I hope my taxes go up next year – and yours, too.

I do not have a burning desire to send more money to Washington. I don’t have a ton of disposable cash and no better place to use it. I do not buy the patently silly argument, propounded by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and others in the Obama administration, that a tax increase on business owners like me will have no effect on employment. I think a tax increase is going to set back economic recovery, perhaps substantially.