ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

Setting aside the "drivel" and "crap" remarks for the moment, I want to make sure I understand why you believe that Duke Energy can deduct its financial loss as a worthless bad debt. We probably agree that when the host committee failed to repay the loan made by the banks, Duke Energy was required to repay the loan because of its guarantee. Are you suggesting that after Duke Energy repaid the bank loan, that the host committee somehow owed a debt to Duke Energy? The host committee never borrowed any money from Duke Energy, so why do you believe that Duke Energy is owed a debt by the host committee? And unless you're some bigshot tax lawyer, why should I believe that you know what you're talking about?

I was talking about the legality of Duke Energy's decision to claim a business deduction in my most recent post, not the legality of the transaction itself. I don't think the Democratic Party host committee or anyone else did anything illegal when the loan and guarantee were first made, but I think it's debatable whether Duke Energy's decision to deduct its financial loss as a business expense is legitimate. I'll explain more about why I feel that way in my next post - - but that's gonna need to wait a bit. Edit: Let's change "in my next post" to "soon." I have some other business to attend to first.

It's not as simple as you claim: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/ch10.html Loans made directly to political parties clearly have additional requirements that must be met before failure to repay can be written off as a bad business debt. Here, the loan was made to the "host committee" of a political party. Even if that technically isn't the same thing as a loan made to the political party itself, the host committee seems to fall within the definition of "other organization that accepts contributions or spends money to influence elections" So can Duke Energy avoid those extra requirements by structuring things as a guarantee rather than an outright loan, because there is no specific language imposing the extra requirements on guarantees made in favor of political parties? Seems pretty slimey to me. And even if Duke Energy surmounts that hurdle, Duke Energy can still only deduct the $ if it "made the guarantee in accord with normal business practice or for a good faith business purpose." Duke Energy's statements that it made the guarantee to help promote the local economy may be an attempt to demonstrate a "good faith business purpose." Given the extra requirements for deducting unrepaid loans to political parties as bad business debts, it's not clear to me that the transaction is "perfectly legal as written," just because they structured it as a guarantee (even assuming that Duke Energy initially had an honest expectation that the host committee would repay the loan in full).

Pay attention to the progression - - one more to go.

If the landlord really did take advantage of you, grow some balls. 1. If the house is in VA, this may be useful: http://www.vlas.org/documents/489281Security%20Deposit.pdf Note, however, that the Virginia Residential Landlord Tenant Act (referred to as the "VRLTA" in the link) only applies to single family house rentals (as opposed to apartment complex rentals), if the landlord "rents more than ten houses in a county or more than four houses in a city." The link also states: "If your rental is not covered by the VRLTA, there may be other state laws that apply to your situation." 2. You also might want to look at the link below. I've never heard of this outfit, so use it at your own risk, but if the info published in their link is accurate it sounds like it might be useful - - make sure you read and understand anything they ask you to sign: http://securitydepositrefund.org/virginia-renters-rights-law.html

I

A few questions that I don't know the answers: 1. Since the borrowed funds were originally supplied to the democratic host committee by 2 local Charlotte banks, and only guaranteed by Duke Energy, does that still qualify as a deductible bad debt expense for Duke Energy? 2. Is it a deductible bad debt expense only if Duke Energy makes some effort to actually recover the money? Because if Duke Energy makes no such effort, couldn't the IRS say that a gift was the true intent, which would not fall under the same tax deduction rules as a true loan? 3. If some effort to recover the money is required for Duke Energy to legitimately claim a bad debt expense deduction, is it enough if Duke Energy simply asks for repayment and gets ignored? 4. Is there any scenario in which the IRS can look past the structure of the funding arrangement and claim that Duke Energy and the host committee always intended that the money never be repaid to Duke Energy, thereby negating treatment as a "bad debt expense?" If an outright contribution by Duke Energy to the host committee is not tax deductible, I'd be concerned that the guarantee arrangement was an artifact to get more favorable tax treatment than an outright gift by Duke Energy. I'm pretty sure that where loans by individuals are concerned, there are some situations where the IRS can look past the structure of a loan and treat it as a gift if there was never any intention for the loan to be repaid. Why should it be different for Duke Energy? But again, I just have questions here, not answers. Because a bad debt expense only creates a deduction, not a dollar-for-dollar credit. So "writing it off" DOES involve additional expense (as compared to getting full repayment of the funds).

Unexpected? How about an athletic but slightly undersized former SEC power forward with good hands who never quite cut it in the NBA to be the next Antonio Gates at TE - - don't have a name, just the type.

T

Incorrectly, as it turns out. I have heard of "Common Cause" - - here's what they say about the legality of large corporate contributions to "host committees" for national political conventions: http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/CC%20CONVENTIONS%20LINGERING%20LOOPHOLES.PDF As the Common Cause link points out, you can make a strong argument that such contributions should be illegal, but under current law, they ARE legal, and "host committees" for both parties' national conventions accept them. As for Duke Energy, I'm not a shareholder, nor am I a customer whose rates are determined in part by what the company spends. As far as I'm concerned, they can spend their money any way they want. Did the Democratic party deceitfully try to hide the fact that the host committee used large corporate $ after publishing propaganda that they wouldn't do that? Sure. Was it deceptive optics? Sure. But was it illegal to accept the corporate $, no. The only thing Duke Energy did that I consider potentially illegal was treating the amount of the unrepaid loan as a tax deductible business expense. I don't know much about corporate tax accounting. If a corporation pays a lobbyist to try to persuade Congress to pass laws that will make the company more profitable, I would expect that to be a legitimate business expense deduction. But this expense (even if it had been made as an outright contribution to a host committee rather than disguised as a loan) - - I just don't know. Smells different, though. But that's a separate issue from whether the accepting of a large corporate contribution was illegal in the first place, and responsibility for the tax treatment lies with Duke Energy, not the political party.

Not familiar with the source, and I don't have a dog in the fight, but FWIW: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/10/18/dem-convention-found-to-have-used-corporate-donations-despite-pledges-not-to/

If that's true, why didn't the Democratic sequester bill pass the Senate?

Let's give this Texas cop a drone to play with: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57572126/texas-police-officer-terminated-after-shooting-at-suspect-41-times/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57569565/u.s-a-step-closer-to-wide-domestic-use-of-drones/ September 2011 photo provided by Vanguard Defense Industries shows ShadowHawk drone with Montgomery County, Texas, SWAT team members. / AP

Maybe he told the dog to put his head inside the truck window one too many times: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXAniU7wvJg

http://www2.highland...-say-ar-643226/ Not sure who's dumber, the idiot who owned the gun or the cops whose investigation found the shooting "accidental." The guy lived in Frostproof - - guess he should have lived in "Bulletproof."

We could of been talking to you, but I don't think so. You might be smarter then me, though.

He's a Ball State cornerback - - he may be ugly but he can run. I sure hope Buddy doesn't trade up to get him, but since he's not from the SEC, I'm not too worried about it: http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/02/05/deion-sanders-leon-sandcastle-andre-dawson-super-bowl-xlvii/1894275/ If we had a 7th round pick this year (which Buddy tends to throw away), I'd be a little more concerned.

1. People who cut in line. For me, this includes people who "join" somebody they know who is already in the line ahead of me. My significant other thinks the "joining" procedure is OK. I say the person who got there first should move to the back of the line if they want to stand with their friend. Sometimes when I park the car my significant other gets in a line, and then gets mad at ME for not cutting in line to join her. I would appreciate a ruling on this. I shop at Costco fairly often, and it can get crowded, so: 2 (a). People who wait for 20 minutes in a line 8 cars deep to get to the gas pumps, and only start fumbling/searching for their Costco/payment cards after pulling up to the pump. WTF were they doing for 20 minutes? Extra credit for making me wait even longer while they yak on their cell phones before even STARTING to search for their cards, and for taking forever to get the hose into their tank because they pulled up to a pump on the opposite side of where their gas tank is. 2 (b). In a crowded aisle, standing with a cart cross-wise to the aisle, so that nobody can pass in either direction - - most police roadblocks are less effective. 3. Drivers who pull into the right turn only lane at a stop light and then "jump" the line by starting just before the light turns green. 4. Drivers who deliberately take up two parking spots. I once lived in an apartment building with underground parking where a guy constantly parked his shiny new expensive car close to the elevator in a diagonal way that always took up two spots. I eventually left a note on his windshield that if he kept doing that, he was gonna find all the air out of his tires some day. Problem solved. It appears I have issues.

Turns out, you may be right about the ear hole, but a little off on the date: http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/021813-644829-asteroid-2012-da-14-missed-earth-narrowly-but-will-return.htm?p=2

If it is, maybe Troup can follow in his . . . uhh . . . . footsteps?

They didn't say it was the same car that actually filmed the cheater - - it was just a still photo of a camera car. That's not very hard to find: http://www.lmgtfy.co...lms google maps I clicked on the first four links returned by the above search - - three of them contained at least one picture of a Google Street Maps camera car. And I'm not much of a geek.

If your concern is that the 3D printer uses human embryonic stem cells as starting material, there may be a Nobel prize-winning workaround that avoids the use of embryonic material: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/08/world/europe/sweden-nobel-prize-medicine Not my field, but if you can potentially build human organs by 3D printing human embryonic stem cells and putting what you "printed" in the right kind of goo, why couldn't you get to the same result by using iPS cells as an alternative feedstock for the "printer?"

If we're into hypotheticals, how about this one. I was watching a game in the last couple years where the fancy mobile ESPN camera that runs along a guide wire directly over the field came crashing down and almost hit a player - - I'm a little hazy on the details, but I think it was a college game. Involving one of the Iowa teams, maybe? Fortunately no one got hurt, and it crashed between plays so it merely delayed the game for a while while they carted off the debris. What if that happens during the last play of a close Super Bowl where the outcome of the final play pre-crash isn't clear, and play is directly affected?

If hearing horror stories about other people's tenants makes you feel better, check this out: http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13108360