From CNBC:
The IRS stats are in: Here’s how tax refunds look compared to last year
The final stats are in from the IRS — and it looks like the average tax refund check isn’t all that different from last year.
The average refund check for the week ended April 19 was $2,725, according to the tax agency. That’s down 2% from a year ago.
In all, the federal government paid $260.9 billion in refunds to taxpayers, compared to $265.3 billion in 2018.
…
Under the new law, the standard deduction has been nearly doubled to $12,000 for single filers ($24,000 for joint) and a number of key itemized deductions have been curtailed. The personal exemption — once valued at $4,050 for each filer, spouse and dependent — has been suspended.
The new law also doubled the child tax credit to $2,000 per kid under 17.
Finally, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has trimmed down individual income tax rates across the board.Though the IRS data suggests that things aren’t all that different for individual taxpayers year over year, CPAs said that clients had plenty of surprises when they filed.
“Everyone wants to compare refunds from one year to the next, but that doesn’t tell the whole story,” said Debbie Freeman, CPA and director of financial planning at Peak Financial Advisors in Denver.
“They did generally see a benefit from tax reform, be it from the adjustment to their income tax brackets or from the larger child tax credit, ” she said.
“But they also saw less withheld in taxes, meaning they had more money in their paychecks, which created less of a refund,” Freeman said.
First
GDP up large: 3.2
Large and in charge.
Decking help?
Considering replacing current 20×24 deck with composite. When I check Lowes, HD and online calculators I get a cost of $3,500-$5,500 for the boards (100 @12ft) depending on trex vs timbertech. I would also need 40 feet of railings.
However, bids are coming in at $20,000 -$24,000+. What am I missing….is labor that much? Are railings that much?
Bystander,
(From the last thread)
The kid even looks like Eli Manning. Let’s wait and see. The Giants didn’t have much luck the last time they drafted a QB out of Duke, I hope 2nd time’s a charm.
I posted a bunch on here about mine, which is about that size.
Railing cost as much as the decking, if not more expensive – and the labor on the railing is considerable. Hell, the matching ADA compliant graspable handrail (in addition to the railing, not the same) – was like $300 in parts alone.
Are you talking about recladding the existing deck, or building a whole new deck?
Go wood. So much cheaper, but you have to enjoy the maintenance. Mine turned seven this year, so I sanded it, brightened the wood and am waiting for a single friggin’ 48 hour forecast without a rain shower in it to lay down the semi-transparent stain. It’s been three weeks since I moved the furniture off and now my lawn is going to get killed. :P
You just gotta learn to love the pain when you want to see the grain.
Of course, if I had money to burn, I would go composite all the way.
Recladding. Sub-structure ok.
Thanks Grim. I revisit this every few years and then just repair my old boards and re-stain.
There was no reason to take the qb at 6. If you love him so much, you trade down, since you can another pick and your guy. This shi! isn’t rocket science.
Raiders feel your pain. They don’t draft for value either. Glad you get your guy, but you have to account for value. These guys would get killed in fantasy. Oh, I love this guy, so let me grab him 2 rds before anyone would have took him.
I don’t like Odell’s attitude, so just let me sell him for anything. They basically traded Odell for Lawrence, good luck getting any value out of that trade now. Lawrence would have to play to way above potential to return par value.
Gettleman might be totally right on all this shi!, but he needs to learn value.
Glad my jets are making all the right moves for the first time in my life.
I have to re-stain my outdoor decks this year, and maybe even my garage doors. My translucent stain somehow lasted almost 5 years on the decks. I’m getting chills thinking about doing the job. Will save so much money doing it myself, but god the process is tedious. Might be last time I do it myself to save some money, just not worth it.
Thanks Lib/Michael.
What stain are you all using?
And pumps keeps looking like the genius with his calls while the experts keep calling for a recession every 4th quarter. I’m sure they will do their annual call later on this year.
Man, still can’t believe how on point I was with my long-term economic calls. Pretty amazing for a nobody like myself.
1987 condo says:
April 26, 2019 at 8:31 am
GDP up large: 3.2
I used the premium Home Depot crap. Somehow, it lasted really long for translucent. I don’t know if I was lucky or not, but it lasted a while. I would assume Sherman Williams or Benjamin Moore would be way better, but the Home Depot stuff actually worked well.
I used translucent to get the most out of the grain since I have high end wood. To me, nothing more beautiful than a freshly stained wood deck, but have to pay the price with maintenance. You know the saying, nothing in life is free.
1987 condo says:
April 26, 2019 at 9:47 am
Thanks Lib/Michael.
What stain are you all using?
Gary,
I think this Duke quarterback is the shiznit. He took a team with absolutely no talent playing only two full seasons to some insane victories this year. This Duke team has no talent whatsoever. It was all him! I don’t even think their 4 year receiver gets drafted. Fcuk, I don’t think they have drafted a single player to the NFL during his tenure. If you can ignore the Wake Forest game and scan down his schedule and then look at what he did to Temple in the Independence Bowl. This kid is really special. He wins big games. He won’t seed the field for two more years behind Eli, but the team obviously put their trust in Eli in getting rid of their dickwad LBJ. And it’s all about Saquon anyway for the next two years. Trust me. Dude posted very respectable numbers with no one to throw the ball too and without a RB to draw off his one decent WR.
Behr Premium is the best for trans and semi trans. Costs about 170 for the 5 gallon though. Once you go to deckover paint, there are better cheaper options. Make sure you sand first if it’s been a while or stain won’t last more than two years. It’s needs smooth grains to adhere, but not finer than 80 grit. I have huge deck and sanding took about 8 hours with a hand held orbital and a rented deck sander for the deck from home depot.
Staining will take me about 4 hours, but I have an air gun, compressor set-up which makes the rails real easy. Oh staining the rails sucks! Worse than sanding them actually. Spray gun? Up once and back halfway down. Next!
Lib,
Guy very well might be the real deal, but it’s not how the value game is played. Giants front office simply fell in love with him, scared themselves into thinking others would grab him, and lost out on value. Could have traded down, got another pick, and still get your guy. At least that’s my take.
Yea, I’m with lib on this. Staining is all about the process. Skip steps and apply stain, and you just wasted time and money.
Lib – Kent State Shootings – May 4, 1960. Nixon re-elected in a landslide in 1972. The left is just creating an amplified 2016 all over again where the Trump voters don’t talk about Trump, they just vote for him. Also…all of the “riled up” only live in 2 or 3 states that will go to Democrats even if they stay home and binge Netflix. What good is a march on Washington DC? Same thing, we know how Washington DC votes. Or do the suburban housewives really want to vote their husbands’ employer provided private healthcare away?
Left wing. Respect your opinions. But I think the left has NEVER been this riled up before. Can you think of a time besides after the Kent State shootings that one party marched on Washington every five minutes to show their disapproval of the other party?
^^^NUTS!! Kent State 1970, Nixon landlslide 1972. BTW, super left-leaning opponent too.
There is value there in that me thinks Cutliffe (who also happened to coach Eli AND his bigger brother) phoned a friend at the Giant’s head office and said this kid is the shiznit.
If there is one thing the sports pundits never get right, it’s valuing the quarterbacks from mediocre schools. Meanwhile, 50% of these no-names end up being the starters in the NFL. Perhaps they lost value in not waiting, but not if this kid gets picked off by another team. Mark my words. This kid is good. I know it sounds crazy, but he has a Brady like persona to him. He doesn’t mince words. Has no ego. Is an incredibly hard worker and is smart as sh1t. The complete opposite of Odell. Have faith.
History rhymes. Nixon won in the 1972 electoral college 520-17. I guess if it wasn’t for Kent State and the Vietnam war McGovern wouldn’t have gotten the 17 electoral votes he did get?
George McGovern – an unsuccessful reformist Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1972. He campaigned on a platform advocating an immediate end to the Vietnam War and for a broad program of liberal social and economic reforms at home.
We’ll see exPat. Biden, is the scariest thing to Trump. Might I remind you, he’s a white male. And he’s not that terribly progressive. Time will tell and the economy will certainly play a role. But the mid-term elections were telling IMO.
I’m ripping up my deck this year and putting in a nice blue stone patio.
Already did the deckover – but three years later it isn’t looking great.
What brand? Tell me you didn’t fall for that Rustoleum Deck Restore stuff.
10:25 Trump is already coming out guns blazing with his usual over the top stupidity.
GDP? Great! Thwy’ll Revise that shit down they always do. If the Dems can shut down the wanna-be Marxists in the party – and yeah the place is sick with them, they have a chance. Remember, big pharma kind of likes The Laissez Faire.
Though I definitely think healthcare is a shit show. The retired gubmint folks get free healthcare after 25 yrs. stay healthy people! Someone’s gotta Pay for that.
I mentioned this three weeks ago and repeated it yesterday. The Dems want Biden gone because he’s an off-brand Trump. You’re making my point for me:
The centrist with the great economy who maybe groped women in private 20 years ago
vs
The centrist who was 2nd banana in the previous lackluster economy who groped women in public 20 minutes ago
We’ll see exPat. Biden, is the scariest thing to Trump. Might I remind you, he’s a white male. And he’s not that terribly progressive. Time will tell and the economy will certainly play a role. But the mid-term elections were telling IMO.
The absolute best paint for hiding anything is Kilz. Over Armour is great deck over. Kilz stain-blocking or hide-all is awesome for ceilings.
Heck, I don’t know if they make it anymore, but I still have about 3 gallons left of their oil-based primer. It is like painting with white tar. It covers anything and everything with one thin coat. You can also feel your brain cells frying when you use it in poorly ventilated areas. I just looked it up. It’s now marketed as Kilz Original.
They were telling, but they are telling you the opposite. Trump gained seats in the Senate and lost less seats in the house than Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, etc. did in their first mid-term. The Dems were secretly devastated when they didn’t take the Senate as they were looking forward to blocking every single nomination until 2020, and now they can’t.
Lib – have you been voluntarily lowering your IQ by watching CNN and MSNBC?
But the mid-term elections were telling IMO.
Well, if all goes well, I will be a dirty renter in a month.
ExPat, et al, lets not overlook the fact that there is deep division in the dem party, perhaps more so than with Trumpers and the rest of the GOP. With Trump, its more about persona than policy so the party holds its nose. But with the Dems, there are clearly policy differences and the faction spoiling for a fight and doctrinal purity clearly has no experience at fighting.
The groping thing won’t have wheels. Not when it comes from a president who prides himself on hanging with beauty pageant contestants and European models. Sorry, but few are as creepy as Trump and his weird wives. Find a flaw that two don’t share and you’ve got something.
And the Dems do want Biden. You are spending too much time on right wing sites that think we care two sh1ts about what comes out of Elizabeth Warren or OCD’s mouths. I’d bet anyone write now that he’ll win the primary.
Any takers?
Lib,
I think you’re right about Cutliff filling the Giants in. He has all those traits of the Manning pedigree. I don’t know much about him other than he had nothing around him at Duke. Social media went ape sh1t when the Giants took him at no. 6. Either Gettleman is a genius or he’s rolling the dice.
On the midterms, it clearly wasn’t the bloodbath that the GOP feared. Gaining seats in the Senate and avoiding the “shellacking” that Obama took was key, but the house did flip.
My only concern is that Trump will continue to be Trump. As long as the left and media can harp on that, it hurts. That is why the GOP voters have to drive Biden left. That is why there needs to be a strategic voting initiative to promote one of Biden’s less electable opponents. I am thinking Kamala Harris.
And no one thought we were taking the senate at midterms. No way, no how.
“And the Dems do want Biden. You are spending too much time on right wing sites that think we care two sh1ts about what comes out of Elizabeth Warren or OCD’s mouths. I’d bet anyone write now that he’ll win the primary.
Any takers?”
No bet, I think he will win. But I am hoping for a lot of self-inflicted damage for the dems during the process. Clinton got driven left but not that far. With this field, it is far easier to drive him left and who knows, even pull off an upset like the dems did in 2016 by promoting Trump.
Best deck stain product to by at HD is PPG Proluxe. It is the same product as Sikkens Cetol, which has been used on boats for years. It’s expensive(50 a gallon, 200 for a 5) but is by far the most durable product they sell in a home improvement store.
House seats lost in first mid-term:
2018 Trump/Rep -33 (POTUS lost House majority)
2010 Obama/Dem -63(POTUS lost House majority)
2002 G.W. Bush/Rep +6 (POTUS kept House majority)
1994 Clinton/Dem -53 (Dem House Majority since 1954 election)
1990 G.H.W. Bush/Rep -8 (Dem House Majority since 1954 election)
1982 Reagan/Rep -28 (Dem House Majority since 1954 election)
Now I’m confused. At first I was thinking you were watching too much MSNBC and CNN and now I’m thinking you’ve never seen either channel.
And no one thought we were taking the senate at midterms. No way, no how.
JCER. I knew about Cetol, but never thought about using it on the deck. You are probably right. Maybe next time I’ll try it.
Nice concrete patio. With a trellis type thing covered when sun/hot with some old fashioned strong lights and some nice planters. No fuss just hose it down. You
Now for the House, the Democrats were given a 6 in 7 chance of gaining control, while the Republicans were given a 1 in 7 chance of keeping control. Here is Nate Silver, who most people think is “the guy”, rightly predicting both the odds and the pickup:
The thing about the House is that you cannot circle 23 districts where you say oh I know for sure Democrats will win these. Maybe 10, 12, 15 look very likely. However you have a field of maybe 80, 90, 100 potential pickups, mathematically probably the dice come up good enough for Democrats in those districts.
OK, so bottom line:
1. Republicans pick gains seats and keep control in the Senate.
2. Republicans lose 33 seats out of “80, 90, 100 potential pickups” (remember, Obama lost 63 seats)
Is that really a midterm election by which you can make apocalyptic future predictions for the Republican party? Is the overall outcome really anything else except…Meh?
Hype and fraudulent post-election hype is all I see.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/10/21/nate_silver_trumpian_news_cycle_makes_election_prediction_very_difficult.html
Clear your mind of everything you know or have heard. I simply think the hatred on the left for Trump is unparalleled in history. It doesn’t matter who they nominate or how far left or right they are. Even the character assassinations won’t hurt as long as they haven’t pulled a Cosby. They will come out in droves on election day for whoever is running against Trump. They did not do that last time and still nearly won. Will the same love be shown by the MAGAmaniacs? Me think not.
The rest is noise really.
Don’t use history as your gauge. Trump is not like any other president. I have more political experience than he does having served on the Safety Patrol in elementary school. Yet Breitbart essentially got him elected (or Hillary was THAT bad). Nate Silver can’t judge this one.
Clear your mind of everything you know or have heard. I simply think the hatred
on the leftby the media and the elites for Trump is unparalleled in history.^^^^Sure the Dem candidate may win by even more popular votes in NY, NJ, CA, and IL, but what does that count for? Bupkus.
They will come out in droves on election day for whoever is running against Trump…in NY, NJ, CA, and IL. Then they’ll riot there afterward.
He couldn’t judge the last one either. But I could. I knew the polls* meant nothing because you couldn’t poll Trump voters. Still can’t.
*polls preceded by a TV network name should always be ignored anyway.
Nate Silver can’t judge this one.
Very funny Ex.
We’ll see. If there is anything that Trump deserves credit for, it’s for creating the greatest show on Earth. You can try to blame the press. But read this, and come back here, and try to tell me it’s the press again.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/25/trump_sleepy_joe_biden_is_not_going_to_be_able_to_do_the_job.html
You know who Trump reminds me of? Looney Skip Rooney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FRhFedcNuA
You know who Trump reminds me of? Looney Skip Rooney.
Don’t avoid! Watch Uncle Floyd!
I watched the whole thing live last night. Trump is absolutely a great showman, I thought the interview went great. Other things that are going to play out between now and 2020 are conveniently not included in that out of context article.
Not mentioned last night, but you will eventually hear this name, and almost nobody has so far: Mike Rogers
Very funny Ex.
We’ll see. If there is anything that Trump deserves credit for, it’s for creating the greatest show on Earth. You can try to blame the press. But read this, and come back here, and try to tell me it’s the press again.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/25/trump_sleepy_joe_biden_is_not_going_to_be_able_to_do_the_job.html
Kamala wins the nomination
Trump wins the presidency
Republicans lose the senate
Republicans pick up a few seats in the house but Dems retain control.
That’s my prediction.
Really Kamala? The angry black woman? Never.
Wasn’t Michelle Obama never proud of her country before her husband ran for president? Sounds a little angry black to me. I think angry black is a voting block.
Really Kamala? The angry black woman? Never.
Is not Kamala mixed race like Obama?
Angry black is really not that different than proud white.
Dems would do better running the Ugandan Giant Kamala!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RpDxcBQ4MY
Pistol packing Kamala is done read the USA Today piece, she owns a handgun, it is if she killed someone already.
Biden’s gonna trounce Trump. Trump knows it. Two chatty white guys who like grabbin’ chicks. Lookout Lincoln vs Douglas it’s hammmmmmer time .
Meanwhile Jared and Trump review strategy:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdv9yFIoLPk
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!
Go pick up Pumps in your girl’s car and enjoy your romantic weekend getaway.
Biden’s gonna trounce Trump. Trump knows it. Two chatty white guys who like grabbin’ chicks. Lookout Lincoln vs Douglas it’s hammmmmmer time .
That must be why CNN and MSNBC treats both groups so equally you wouldn’t hardly notice you aren’t watching a variety show with the combined casts of Hee-haw and Def Comedy jamz.
Angry black is really not that different than proud white.
6:22 it’s like slipping into a v’gina, amirite …? It’s a gender fluid money trap
Buddy doncha fuggitit!
“The groping thing won’t have wheels. Not when it comes from a president who prides himself on hanging with beauty pageant contestants and European models…Find a flaw that two don’t share and you’ve got something.”
You forget there are two separate sets of juries, judges, and executioners. See Al Franken.
“I’d bet anyone write now that he’ll win the primary. Any takers?”
Any amount. Literally any amount. Name it.
Left wing of the party eats alive this establishment politician who would be the oldest elected (male, white) President ever with his portfolio of radical left wing mortal sins.
Most likely path is that he opens a hole in the left wing firmament that some new sleek pseudo-moderate can run through. He’s a used up offensive linebacker with bad knees. Good for a single specific purpose, not much else.
I see this as a litmus test. Question: so Mr Business what’d You accomplish in office? It’ll come down to Trump trying to explain his wins in office. Should make for an interesting debate.
This marks the 3rd time in Trenton I’ve been near violence. When I ate pizza a Delorenzos, someone was shot in the alley. When I had to go to court, someone was murdered on the street I drove down 5 minutes later. Today, I had to go to the hospital in Trenton and they were rushing a gunshot victim in. Guy was found with his car crashed shot near Trenton Thunder Stadium. I think Murphy should have to walk through these streets once a month.
https://www.nj.com/news/2019/04/police-find-driver-shot-in-crashed-car-near-trenton-baseball-stadium.html
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What did Biden accomplish during 40 years in office? BTW, 3.2% GDP just reported for Q1. I guess Biden/Obama did that.
I see this as a litmus test. Question: so Mr Business what’d You accomplish in office? It’ll come down to Trump trying to explain his wins in office. Should make for an interesting debate.