June 26, 2002
This Week’s Bulletin Was Written By Tom Sayer.
THIS WEEK’s MEETING
Barry Tobias led us in the pledge, Lou Scanlon delivered the invocation, and returning-former-member-now-member-of-the-Shelter-Island-Club Craig Choy led us in the repeat after me version of “Down By the Old Mill Stream,” complete with hand motions. Melissa opened her last meeting as President with complaints over being “set up” at the Demotion Party. Although she claims to have been the “weakest link,” if memory serves she was standing alone at the end of the “show” despite her inability to answer even one Rotary question correctly! Thank you, Melissa, for a great Rotary year!
NEW MEMBER
Mike Jones inducted another fabulous new
member into our club today, Rosalie Kramm of Kramm Associates, Inc., Certified
Shorthand Reporters. She makes the
13th new member in the 2001-02 Rotary Year, just over the goal of
one per month! Rosalie may be
known to you soccer enthusiasts as one of the first women referees to break
into the ranks of professional soccer.
She served for the NASL and the MISL as well as for the NCAA
championships. When she is not
behind a stenography machine or on the soccer field, Rosalie enjoys
bodysurfing. Welcome!
PAUL HARRIS FELLOW
Dennis Dater has become our Club’s newest
Paul Harris Fellow, shown here with Melissa and our own “Poor Hairless Fellow”
Dave Ferguson. Members whose
cumulative contributions to the Rotary International Foundation reach $1,000
are eligible for induction into this notable society. The donated funds are held in an endowment fund and the
principal is untouched for 3-years so that the interest earned can be used to
fund all expenses of the Foundation.
In this way, 100% of donated funds are applied to charitable purposes. The most notable accomplishment of the
Foundation to date is the elimination of polio from the entire Western world
with only a handful of countries left to go. With 4-1 matching commitments from Bill Gates and others,
Rotary expects to raise sufficient monies to complete the job in a few short
years.
Announcements
Jennifer Cusick went through the roll-call of projects sponsored under International Services:
Ø Thousand Smiles has a new clinic in Ensenada to show for our contributions
Ø Sister Family Charities
Ø Tijuana Homebuidling Project through which we built three homes this year (many thanks to Pat Moore)
Ø Mission Valley Rotary Club sponsored matching grant program
Ø Responsibility – David Lynch now runs three medical clinics, a kindergarten class (90 students) and a computer lab (340 students). Responsibility also built an elementary school that has been turned over to the State to run. David was on hand to receive a contribution of $1,000 to send needy kids to summer camp.
Sgt.-At-Arms
Lynn Hamilton has her 15-year anniversary coming up and Alan Talbott will be celebrating 23-years. Linda Jalving took a hit for a mailing advertising a sale of reconditioned Rolex watches (no, Lou, no reconditioned Timex’s available). Leah Swearingen gave kudos to Susan Millard-Davis and Mike Jones. Susan and her husband Steve are expecting and this sort of means that Mike can claim 13 and a half new Rotarians this year. Sig Weitzman bragged that on three separate occasions his son acknowledged he (Sig) was right about something. And in a rare self-imposed fine, Frank bragged about winning an amateur bowling tournament, scoring a 230 along the way!
This Week’s SPeaker
Ed Blitz is a former managing tax partner
with KMPG and now focuses on tax, estate and financial planning. That is, when he is not writing columns
on kids and money, or doing TV commentary on the subject. He started his discussion with the
report of Worldcom’s $4 billion in overstated profits adding to the already
indigestible news of Peregrine, Global Crossing, Adelphia and Enron. According to Ed, this is nothing
new. CEO’s of big corporation have
for years announced earnings and then expected accounting firms to do whatever
it took to meet the number. In
some years it means overstating income (or overstating expenses) and in others
just the opposite. Having higher
than expected earnings can be as much a problem as lower than expected
earnings. Most companies want
modest, predictable growth rather than huge swings. Pressure is applied to normalize earnings through creative
accounting methods. Hummmmmm…
Now for the IRS. A couple years ago we all were heart warmed by the enactment of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights which was supposed to mean a kinder, gentler IRS. What this means today is that we may get a smile with our penalty assessment. After all the lip service, the IRS is meaner than ever. But the game is mostly waged on computers. Although there will be a whopping 50,000 random full-blown audits this year, most taxpayers will only get the dreaded letter if their tax return does not match up with the various 1099’s, mortgage tax statements and other information returns received by the IRS. The rest of the return will go largely unnoticed so long as what is reported directly to the IRS shows up on the return.
As far as education is concerned, the new Section 529 plans are a tremendous benefit in growing tax-free funds for educational purposes. But all the other “education” tax breaks are totally illusionary for anyone who actually earns a living. Apparently one must not only be indigent but must also have access to a tax lawyer in order to quality for and be able to apply for any of these new benefits. But, after all, they are the IRS and they are here to help!
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