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PERSONAL FINANCE Due Diligence | Book Value Due Diligence come tax was instituted a century ago. You’ll note that as late as 1981, the maximum bracket was still 70 percent, double today’s top rate. Click on Tax Freedom Day on the left side of the Tax Foundation page for an interesting account of America’s tax policies, including the number of days required to pay income, sales and property taxes. The Tax Foundation welcomes questions about capital gains and dividend taxes. Call 202/464-6200 for more information. Several online sites also can help complete your 1040 form and file it for free, though there’s a small fee — around $10 — for a state return. The free services usually make sense only for individuals with relatively straightforward returns. In each case, however, program upgrades are available at a reasonable price. Finally, consider a visit to the Tax Museum for a comprehensive history of how America’s tax policies evolved. The information won’t lower your taxes, but the historical context it provides might help you feel better come April 15. Websites of Interest OECD on tax burdens www.oecd.org/document/47/0,3343,en_2649_34533_44115887_1_ 1_1_37427,00.html Tax rates and receipts as a percentage of GDP www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/income-tax-receipts U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History, 1913-2011 www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html Free tax completion and filing services http://www.taxact.com/ www.freetaxusa.com/?gclid=CNKj5p7gxKYCFcIKKgodlEuRGw http://turbotax.intuit.com/ Tax History Museum www.tax.org/Museum/default.htm Book Value Getting to the Heart of Your Finances Women’s Love/Hate Thing for a Significant Other: Money by Angele McQuade Although it may be an easy business decision to target a personal finance book at a female demographic, it’s far more difficult to write a book that’s more than just traditional content skewed “girlie.” Emotional Currency: A Woman’s Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship With Money not only hits its audience, it also does so in a natural, completely relevant way. advice urges us to strip emotions out of our decision-making, Levinson encourages embracing them instead. She says that fear in particular can be an essential guide. “When it comes to finances, fear focuses and motivates us to take care of business. Fear tells us we need to reach deeper inside ourselves to find inner resources and to reach further outside of ourselves to find other kinds of support.” motional Currency is an extenAdvice worth the purchase price: Whesion of psychotherapist Kate Levther it’s a suggestion to write a money inson’s research combined with memoir or challenge our financial beher experience leading workshops on haviors, Levinson provides strategies and women’s relationships with money. An activities designed to elicit personal exploration of her emotions led her to exploration. These culminate in the creconclude that she’d always believed ation of a money action plan, a tool she money didn’t matter, but it drove most of Emotional Currency: A Woman’s says will “integrate your feelings and Guide to Building a Healthy her decisions and much of her behavior. financial concerns, your heart and your Levinson weaves the details of her Relationship with Money. Kate mind, into your actions, enabling you to personal journey together with those of Levinson, Ph.D., Celestial Arts/ come to the best solutions regarding the women she’s worked with, giving Random House (April 2011), money matters.” insights into the effects emotions toward paperback, 224 pages, $14.99. Read Emotional Currency if: You’d like money can have on financial decisions. to change any conflicted feelings you What I liked: Her discussion of the feminine and mascu- have about money or if you find yourself making financial line principles of money and the global benefit she believes decisions based on unconscious routines or patterns. could result if both were equally valued. What I loved: The assertion that one’s approach to Angele McQuade is the author of two books, including money can be rational and emotional. Although traditional Investment Clubs for Dummies. E 10 | BetterInvesting | April 2011