Category: Recreation
For many people, nothing surpasses the feeling of bombing down the racetrack at breakneck speed, passing a rival while the wind sweeps through your hair, engine grease sticks under your fingernails and a whiff of unburnt fossil fuel lingers about your nostrils. The only thing remotely comparable to winning the race might be claiming tax deductions for your efforts. Well, if your car has the right set-up, then the government may let you do just that.
Business vs. Hobby Activity
One approach to substantiating tax deductions for auto racing expenses involves characterizing the undertaking as a business rather than hobby activity under Treasury Regulation Section 1.183-2. For an example of how to do so, look to the case of Morrissey v. Commissioner, which concerned a banker who operated a competitive drag racing outfit. The taxpayer proved that he entered into racing with the actual and honest intent to earn a profit, and therefore, the court allowed him to claim deductions for racing-related expenses. Critical factors in this determination included that Morrissey had obtained sponsorship from a local casino, actively worked to make his car more competitive, enjoyed previous success in drag racing, prepared detailed business plans and maintained a separate bank account for racing transactions. (Morrissey v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 2005-86)
Advertising Expense
Another way to claim deductions for racing costs rests upon the argument that the activity provides a direct benefit to your business as an advertising venture. For instance, in Ciaravella v. Commissioner, the owner of a company that sold and leased Learjets, also raced open-wheeled cars. Ciaravella’s company reimbursed him for his racing activities as an advertising expense. The IRS argued that such reimbursement actually constituted a disguised dividend rather than a deductible payment. However, the court allowed the company to claim the reimbursement as an advertising deduction, in part, because Ciaravella’s car bore the company’s logo and he used his status as a race car driver to develop relationships with wealthy race fans interested in purchasing Learjets from his company.
Yellow Caution Flag
Beware however that the Internal Revenue Service and federal tax courts have noted that people often engage in auto racing for amusement or recreation as a hobby-like undertaking. Note also that for tax purposes, the law prohibits hobby deductions in excess of hobby income. (IRC Section 183) As such, those looking to claim deductions for the full amount of their racing expenditures should be prepared to demonstrate to the IRS that their activity has an underlying profit motive. Consult with your tax attorney or certified public accountant for further advice on documenting and substantiating this position for your specific situation
Commonly Deductible Items
If you can prove that your pursuit of auto racing glory should qualify as a for-profit activity, then the tax rules allow deductions for many of the related costs. (IRC Section 162) Commonly incurred deductions related to operating an auto racing business may include expenditures for supplies (gas, oil, tires and other spare parts), travel (airfare, lodging and meals), entrance fees, licensing, repairs, uniforms, research and development, merchandising production, advertising, administrative overhead and employee salaries. However, expenditures for the cost of acquiring or improving long-term assets, such as a race car or trailer, usually should be capitalized and depreciated over a five-year period, unless an exception applies.
looking for Jobs?http://truckerhunt.com/
Of course, famous Filipino food or pagkaing Pinoy recipes are served in Filipino gatherings. The lutong bahay website now makes these Filipino food recipes available online so that Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike can also learn how to prepare them. Anyone can access and download the dishes easily and quickly from any point of the globe where there is a working internet connection. The lutong bahay website should not be interchanged with lutong pinoy website, though.
The full range of Pilipino cuisine is broadly and almost completely presented at the lutong bahay website, where various types of Filipino lutong bahay foods are categorized as Pinoy breakfast recipes, viands or lutong ulam recipes, snacks or merienda recipes and party dishes. The free recipes are made even more tempting with pictures from the Philippines.
Filipino or Pinoy cooking has been highly influenced by the Malays, Chinese, Spaniards and Americans throughout Philippine history. In recent years, the worldwide distribution of overseas Filipino workers has brought back to the country many additional cultural influences. Filipino dishes, therefore, include such a wide diversity of flavors. Today, even the age old Philippine or Pilipino foods recipes are still being prepared, although no longer using the native earthen pot or palayok over open fires. Those same dishes have also been altered by many families and generations to produce heirloom recipes that are closely treasured. In fact, variations of a dish such as the Philippine adobo can fill several cookbooks on their own. Furthermore, Filipino cooks have also been busy creating original dishes through the years and still do so.
Filipinos give greater value to the best healthy and easy Filipino foods recipes, though, and this could be one of the foremost reasons for them to go through the online collection of lutong Pinoy free recipes or lutong bahay free recipes from the Philippines. The words that guarantee top quality are mga lutong Pinoy or lutong Pilipino which mean Filipino cooking and mga lutong bahay or lutuing bahay which mean home cooked food. Among the dishes included are those made with Mama Sita recipes. These are recreations of traditional Filipino recipes using convenient ready mixes.
The website can produce a lutong Pinoy menu for even a years worth of meals or more, using regional cuisine creatively, including Ilocano, Pampanga, Tagalog and Visayan foods, dishes and recipes. Meat dishes can be represented by the Batangas beef bulalo of Batangas province and the Dagupan pigar pigar of Pangasinan. Filipino food recipes for seafood can be represented by the seafood kare kare, the sweet and sour lapu – lapu, the Spanish sardines, the rellenong pusit, the crab Maritess and the ginataang tilapia. There are also other recipes to include, from noodles like the pancit chami recipe to vegetables like the saluyot recipe, ginisang togue, sinigang sa bayabas and sinigang sa miso, to commercial favorites like the Jollibee style spaghetti recipe, siopao sauce recipe, hopia recipe, sylvanas recipe and best ube chiffon cake recipe.
To complement the free Filipino recipes, the lutong bahay website also provides information on food events like the Lanzones Festival 2010.
Do you have the amazing pleasure of owning your very own inground pool but do not know how to landscape around it? This is an issue that many homeowners will deal with. Here I will give you some simple yet universally effective pool landscaping ideas that are relatively easy to implement. This way you can make your backyard pool twice as impressive as it already is, turning it into the perfect spot for summer parties or just relaxing at home.
As our first pool landscaping idea, it is important to decorate the area around the pool with a variety of plants and vegetation. The landscape of the surrounding environment will determine the entire mood of your backyard. Also, do not forget to include vibrant colors around the entire area. The reason for this is that the blue hue of your pool water will accentuate any color it hits; thus, giving your backyard that serene and surreal feeling of relaxation and joy. Make sure to add plenty of flower-bearing plants. This way, you get to add color to your landscape, while at the same time giving your pool a natural feel. In addition, try to stay away from plants that drop leaves or petals as cleaning them every so often can be quite annoying. Go for potted colorful plants, such as zinnia and crotons, that hold on to their petals and leaves for a very long time. Moreover, do not hesitate to add rocks or stones of different shades and shapes in between your flowers. If you wish to cover up the dirt around your pool area, then I suggest that you use mulch. Mulch will help your soil retain its moisture and avoid weed growth. Also, it is natural and adds grandeur to your overall pool setup. If you want, you may even go for a mountainous terrain appeal. Just stack huge boulders together, add a water pump to simulate a small waterfall, and there you have it: your own personal royal rainforest.
Another pool landscaping idea is to make your backyard pool more inviting by changing up your outdoor furniture and decor. You can add more elegance and mystery to your pool by placing elements that have stories to tell. You can do this by adding in backyard statues, rustic lounge chairs, and even small fountains. This will help your pool become a really warm and guest-friendly hang-out place. You may also add a canopy over your pool area. This will ensure that you can hold backyard barbecues no matter the weather. It also gives you the liberty to rest and relax in your pool garden without worrying about the harsh elements of nature.
With some simple pool landscaping, it is quite easy to transform your pool into not just a place for recreation, but a wonderful spot to relax. It is not as difficult as it seems. All you need is a creative imagination and a desire to turn your backyard into something special. Follow these tips and you will have your own natural paradise in no time.
It’s often said that baseball is America’s favorite past time; however, Americans have all sorts of recreational activities they enjoy. What kind of recreation do you enjoy during your free time? Perhaps you like to play sports at your local park, or go surfing at your nearby beach. Maybe you’re an adventurer and enjoy rock and mountain climbing, or maybe you’d rather spend a nice quiet evening at home, hacking away at your computer on your latest novel.
Whatever happens to be your recreation of choice, you definitely need to make sure you have sufficient health insurance (even typists get carpal tunnel!), and perhaps even life insurance.
Jumping out of airplanes and parachuting to the ground is undoubtedly a freeing and exhilarating experience; however, everyone who has ever engaged in this particular recreation has to admit that the thought of serious injury or death or both has crossed their minds at least a couple of times. By making sure you have a good health insurance policy intact, you won’t have to worry about financial distress if you should find yourself in physical distress due to your risky recreation.
The same is true for having a life insurance policy. No one likes to think about dying, especially dying during a recreation they enjoy such as racing down the streets on their Harley’s or climbing the mountains with their ATVs. However, dying is a fact of life, and these dangerous recreations can unfortunately speed up the process. If you just can’t give up your Hog, it’s definitely time to start thinking about purchasing a life insurance policy. Your beneficiaries will be too grief stricken to deal with financial worries, as well.
Everyone likes to have fun, but certain kinds of fun can be dangerous and even fatal. In the event that your recreation takes a wrong turn, make sure you’re protected by health insurance, and your family is protected by life insurance.
Art is an extremely private experience, yet, it is meant to be shared with the public. Society, as a whole, examines the art produced and has the right to approve, disapprove, acknowledge, ignore, praise and abuse it. The public or society has not remained constant over the years. In the time of the Renaissance, for example, only a select few were “society.” They commissioned art, were patrons of the arts and their artists. Today, almost anyone can share in the experience of art. They can attempt to create, view and act as a critic.
Does art make the world a better place, or is it quite useless? This is a very ancient riddle, and no one has solved it yet. A similar question – has art truly had any impact upon society? Has it fashioned or molded minds? Has it shaped opinions and altered how people feel or think? Is it practicable in or relevant to society and its individuals’ daily lives?
Art reflects life. It is a portrait of history, whether it is history of the current moment or an event in the past or something of the imagination. Art has captured an event, clarifying its existence and representation to society. The portraits of the French Revolution by David, Benjamin West’s portrayal of the death of General Wolfe and Poussin’s recreation of the Rape of the Sabine Women all strive to provide a version of historical events. Society, in turn, can accept or reject these portrayals of true events. Sometimes, as in the case of Goya’s depiction of the French behavior during their conquest of Spain, art inspires a deep hatred of a certain nationality.
Art encapsulate a country’s culture during that time period. Rembrandt, Rousseau, Monet, Hogarth, Whistler, Jan Steen, Frans Hal and Breughel depict for their generation the world as they see it. They affect future society by providing concise, if sometimes imaginative, depictions of daily life. Brughel the Elder paints peasants, Jean Baptiste depicts lower-class life and Daumier’s subjects in “The Third Class Carriage” are not the
lofty work of Gainsborough. The wit and graphicness of Hogarth in “The Rake’s Progress” or the imposing work of Thomas Eakins’ “The Gross Clinic” provide historians with clues and pictures to a vastly different way of life. Jan Steen’s “The Eve of St. Nicholas” provides a way to uncover how people spent Christmas in the early 17th century in the Netherlands.
Art has encouraged feelings of patriotism and national pride. Goya’s, “The Third of May, 1808,” the Americans portrayal of their revolution and countless other artists across the centuries have provided an impact extending beyond the work. Depictions of Washington crossing the Delaware, and portraits of battlefields, at home and abroad, are scenes that inspire society. These works also remind the public of their past, what has been sacrificed or accomplished and what they can aspire to in the present or future.
Artwork has also provided clues to lives long over and species since disappeared. Holstein provides us with portraits of people long dead e.g. Henry VIII, Erasmus of Rotterdam, as Rubens does with his painting of Marie de’ Medici. Goya’s masterful and psychologically rich work “The Family of Charles IV” lays bare the natures and relationships of this royal family for all of society to view. Art has also provided examples of garden styles, structures to be imitated and fashions to follow.
Artwork has allowed us to glimpse lives and lifestyles. At one time, dressmakers in the colonies used the artwork found in magazines and depicted in reproductions of paintings to create the latest in fashionable clothing. Art shaped a fashionable society where none had existed before. It allowed the Americans to be as up-to-date as their European counterparts. In the same manner, George Caleb Bingham with his painting “Fur Traders on the Mississippi” allowed Europeans a glimpse of another life. The art works by the Jewish artists trapped in the concentration camps of World War II preserve for all time the horrors of war and the inhumanity inflicted by one race upon another. Art has also been a medium to help spread a culture. Art of propaganda during war is a classic example. Posters urge people to support their troops. Marketing ploys ask consumers to buy locally or purchase a specific product. Pop art is probably one of the most influential societal tools of the modern and post-modern age. The best possible example is Any Warhol. His Campbell Soup Cans are now icons.
Art has stirred the imagination of all nations from the earliest time. It has helped roused patriotic fervor, brought new ideas and culture to light, raised questions and rewritten or reinterpreted historical events. Art has provided clues to the past and advanced questions about the future. Its impact continues to be felt emotionally. For, above all, art touches us beyond the intellect, reaching down into society’s emotional core. In the end, the greatest impact of art is its ability to provide us with the truth about the world seen through the eye of an artist.