rostasi

Phone tax refund is yours to claim End of old IRS policy can add up to savings on 2006 returns 08:25 AM CST on Monday, December 11, 2006 By JENNIFER CHAMBERLAIN / The Dallas Morning News The abolition of a tax originally levied to fund the Spanish-American War in 1898 could add up to extra money on your tax return for 2006. Individuals and businesses can receive a credit for long-distance federal telephone excise taxes they've paid over the last three years -- but the credit must be claimed on their 2006 returns, which are due April 16. "What people really need to know is that it's money due them, but they're going to have to do a little work to get it back," said Dick Hansen, president of Technology Change Management, a telecommunications consulting company based in Houston. "I call it a 'claim it or lose it' deal." Also Online Get information from the IRS about the telephone excise tax refund See a draft version of IRS Form 8913 Technology Change Management's Website After a long-running legal dispute, the Treasury Department announced in May that it would no longer collect the outmoded tax, which was originally established as a luxury tax on those wealthy enough to own a telephone. The IRS agreed to offer taxpayers refunds, which are estimated to total $15 billion. Taxpayers can claim a refund for excise taxes on long-distance service billed between Feb. 28, 2003, and Aug. 1, 2006. That includes service over landline, cellphone, voice-over-Internet protocol and fax, as well as bundled services, in which local and long-distance are not differentiated. The excise tax on local phone service is not included, though there have been efforts to repeal that tax as well. So what if you don't have copies of your phone bills for the past three years? Individuals can claim a standard amount based on their exemptions. Those amounts are: *$30 for one exemption. *$40 for two. *$50 for three. *$60 for those claiming four or more exemptions. However, if you can track down those phone records, you'll probably be able to get a much bigger refund, tax experts say. "If you look at the standard amount, it's probably less than one-half of what you would actually have paid if you had the records," said Mr. Hansen, who estimates that the average person with a landline and cellphone could get back $120 to $150 by claiming the actual amount paid. Phone companies' policies vary widely as to what they charge for back copies of bills. Some examples: Texas residential customers of AT&T, formerly SBC, can get paper copies of archived bills at no cost, a spokeswoman said. Vonage customers can access their billing records online for free. Verizon Wireless offers one bill reprint per year free but charges $5 for each additional bill. You don't have to itemize deductions to claim the full amount of excise taxes paid -- this is a tax credit, not a tax deduction -- but you will have to fill out IRS Form 8913 and attach it to your return. That form hasn't been finalized yet but should be available soon at http://www.irs.gov. For businesses, the refund payoff can be even bigger, particularly for those that are telecom-intensive, says Ken Sibley, a certified public accountant and managing director of Sibley & Co. in Dallas. And since businesses are required to keep records for seven years, finding the documentation shouldn't be a problem. "It's worth the effort, especially for businesses," he said. "For the vast majority of individuals, it's probably not going to be worth their time going back and picking up every 50 cents or a dollar for a month's worth of charges." Mr. Hansen has set up a Web site, http://www.refundphonetax.com, to help get out the word about the excise tax refund. He also is working with business clients to educate their employees through posters, e-mails and W-2 envelope inserts. "Companies are getting back about $50 per employee, so if they have 10,000 people, they could actually get back half a million," he said.

Sure, no prob. There's always a few folks whose deaths may not have received much media attention. Of course, there's some personal leanings here, but I'm trying to keep it to somewhat well-known folks. Going thru these kinda slowly, but we'll make it thru December: June: • Vince Welnick ("Grateful Dead") • Hilton Ruiz • Billy Preston • György Ligeti • Duane Roland ("Molly Hatchet") • Claydes Charles Smith ("Kool and the Gang") • Moose ("Eddie" from "Frasier") • Arif Mardin • Elkan Allan (created British pop music show "Ready, Steady, Go!") • Johnny Jenkins (blues guitarist who helped launch the career of Otis Redding. Hendrix was also influenced by his guitar stylings) • George Page (creator and narrator of the PBS series Nature) • Ross Tompkins July: • Jan Murray (comedian) • Don Lusher (British jazz trombonist) • Kasey Rogers (Louise Tate on "Bewitched" - also was an accomplished motorcross racer) • Mícheál Ó Domhnaill ("Bothy Band") • Syd Barrett • Milan Williams (keyboardist with the "Commodores") • Red Buttons • Malachi Thompson • Dodo Greene • Jessie Mae Hemphill • Floyd Dixon • Murray Bookchin

April • Bernard Seigal (Buddy Blue - "Beat Farmers") • Martin Gilks (drummer w/"The Wonder Stuff") • Gene Pitney • Allan Kaprow (Fluxus artist) • June Pointer ("The Pointer Sisters") • Phil Walden (founder of Capricorn Records) • William Gottlieb • Bonnie Owens (singer/ex-wife of Merle Haggard who helped define his sound - she died 30 days after the death of her first husband, Buck Owens) • Helen Hobbs Jordan (music teacher whose students included Tony Bennett, Melissa Manchester, Bette Midler, and Paul Simon) • Leighton Kerner (classical music critic for The Village Voice) May • Johnny Paris ("Johnny and the Hurricanes") • Rosita Fernandez (Tejano singer) • Naushad Ali (Bollywood composer) • Grant McLennan (lead singer for "The Go-Betweens") • John Hicks • Johnnie Wilder, Jr. (founder of the band "Heatwave" - "Boogie Nights") • Lew Anderson (bandleader, played Clarabell the Clown on "The Howdy Doody Show") • Cheikha Rimitti (famous Algerian rai singer - collaborations with Robert Fripp and Flea from the "Red Hot Chili Peppers") • Freddie Garrity ("Freddie and the Dreamers") • Billy Walker (country music singer - "The Tall Texan") • Jack Fallon (jazz double-bassist - Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Sarah Vaughan, et al.) • Hamza El Din • Clifford Antone (owner of Antone's blues club) • Desmond Dekker • Lula Mae Hardaway (Stevie Wonder's mom)

February: • Romano Mussolini (Italian jazz musician and son of Benito) • Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) • Ustad Qawwal Bahauddin (amazing Qawwali singer) • Akira Ifukube (film composer "Godzilla") • Jack Montrose • Elton Dean • Jay Dee (hip-hop producer) • Jockey Shabalala ("Ladysmith Black Mambazo") • Lenny Dee • Putte Wickman (Swedish jazz orch leader) • Lynden David Hall (British soul singer) • Bill Cowsill (lead singer of "The Cowsills") • Ray Barretto • Larry Neill (big band singer: Paul Whiteman) • Anthony Burger (gospel pianist) • Don Knotts (hey, why not...) • Darren McGavin • Thomas Koppel ("Savage Rose") • Tsakani Mhinga (South African R&B singer) • Milton Katims (conductor: Seattle Symphony) March: • Johnny Jackson ("Jackson 5") • Willie Kent (blues bassist) • Charlie Hodge (guitarist/backup singer for Elvis) • Ivor Cutler • King Floyd • Ali Farka Touré • Jesse "Guitar" Taylor • Gordon Parks • Raphe Malik • Anna Moffo • Narvin Kimball (banjo player - founding member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band) • Lumumba Carson (Professor X: "X-Clan") • Pío Leyva (Buena Vista Social Club) • Buck Owens • Nikki Sudden • Stanislaw Lem • Don Alias • Jackie McLean

Numero Group stuff gets lots of rodcast play!

These were just in January of this year: • Alex St. Clair (guitarist with Beefheart - "Owed t' Alex") • Lou Rawls • Markus Löffel (Mark Spoon of Jam & Spoon) • Bob Weinstock (Prestige) • Wilson Pickett • Rick van der Linden (keyboardist with Ekseption) • Sherman Ferguson • Janette Carter (Carter Family) • Gene McFadden (McFadden & Whitehead) • Nam-June Paik • Coretta Scott King (not really a recording artist, but it's nice to remember her).

Hope you have miles and miles of smiles on your b-day!

Jeremy Taylor did the Joburg Talkin' Blues with Ag Pleez Daddy on a 7". There's an EP too that adds a couple of extras.

I don't think it comes up that often. MG might have a different perspective. I didn't begin listening until The Promise of a Future (Masekela) and/or probably Miram Makeba was played at home too.

Yup! It's kinda from the "addendum" to the originally conceived list - too much of a good thing... You can decide for yourself (as "best of's" go, you understand): the extras The first 100 (or so)

Yeah, it's one of those "100 Records That Set the World On Fire" "Various Artists Ice Cream And Suckers (Mercury 1963) At the same time that more respectable South African musicians like Dollar Brand, Miriam Makeba, and The Blue Notes were thinking about making tracks to Europe, the rural township musicians on Ice Cream And Suckers watched their music leap the ocean to become one of the first exports to America. . . if they were informed at all. Using Western instruments - harmonicas, chunky saxophone, lots of guitar - the patterns of the highlife dancehall were underlined in funky bass and drawn above with cascading harmonies. In this collection of singles, each group has a strong presence that comes from the hybrid of soul and mbube. The place where cultures collide can form greatness, like the birth of rocksteady in Jamaica, but a clash is not easy when you're trapped in it. When "Mr Bull" (Freddie Gumbi) yelled "You bloody bastard, get out of my yard!" over the goofy sound effects of a distressed steer, you wonder what he really meant. An almost painfully happy record, Ice Cream And Suckers yields a fascinating and suspiciously sunny picture in a brutal period of history."

Jeez. It's got everything - Evil Zionist Slave Queen, oppressed masses, cheesy effects, golden hero, midget advisor, evil scientists, reactor meltdown, a spaceship, and something resembling martial arts. A bit longish (12 1/2 minute) clip, with subtitles. Quite a gift to rational religious dialog. http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1329

The next Shirin Neshat film.

filesharing: not just for pirates

Same here!

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...c=31312&hl=

yeah, man...headed by Carlos Santana's brother and guys in the band like Hadley Caliman and Luis Gasca. good albums.

I honestly don't remember where I was then. My friend of 20 years, composer Jerry Hunt, had passed away exactly one week earlier, so I wasn't in a stable frame-of-mind you might say.

Sorry Joe. It still seems to work for me.

from the film "Before the Music Dies"

news article: http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=24208 nice youtube vid:

Yeah, man! That's a CrAzY low price for 4 discs - especially high quality stuff like this!

Wow! Great story! You said that you found the titles to the LP and pieces, but I'm curious how you did this with just the copy that you had. Thanks for the point to the vids. Looking forward to this documentary.

If you were a tree...

Kwanzaa? --- Now playing: Incredible Bongo Band - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida