Following the high demand for the December courses, we’ve put on an extra date for the ‘How to Survive a PAYE Review’ course which will take place at Holywell Park, Loughborough on Tuesday 7^th February. Cost £350. You can find further details and book on the BUFDG events page. Places are limited to 15 so please book as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

In addition, there are only a handful of places left on our International Employee Taxation course, entitled ‘Don’t be an Innocent Abroad’ on the 15th March in Loughborough as well as our 2-day Land and Property VAT course.

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2011 End-of-Year statistics on Airport screening from

the Department of Homeland Security:

Terrorist Plots Discovered 0

Transvestites 133

Hernias 1,485

Hemorrhoid Cases 3,172

Enlarged Prostates 8,249

Breast Implants 59,350

Natural Blondes 3

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As Ron Lieber reported in the New York Times, personal finance guru Suze Orman is launching her own debit card brand, the Approved Card, following in the footsteps of music mogul Russell Simmons and his Rush Cards. Suze Orman’s debit card will be a prepaid debit card, ensuring customers using the card can spend generally only what they have available.

As a benefit to customers, and in keeping with Suze Orman’s focus on helping consumers build stable credit histories, the card will offer unlimited, free credit reports. She a

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House prices fell at a marginally slower pace in the three months to December against a backdrop of steady demand and a modest rise in the number of properties coming on to the market, a survey showed on Tuesday.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ seasonally adjusted house price balance rose to -16 last month from -17 in November, the highest level since June 2010 and confounding economists’ forecasts of a further decline to -19.

London remained an outlier, with broad-based price rises.

Nationally, respondents expected prices to continue falling over the coming three months.

“Continuing problems with the economy and the ongoing instability in the eurozone seem to be weighing heavily on the UK housing market, and expectations for the coming months are fairly subdued,” said RICS spokesman Ian Perry.

“With sales expectations remaining flat, it is important that vendors are realistic in their pricing if they wish the sale to go through in good time.”

There are nearly 1,400 exchange traded funds and notes listed on U.S. exchanges, and it should come as no surprise that not every fund is going to make it. After the rapid growth experienced by the ETF business, a weeding-out process is normal as investors vote with their wallets and unpopular funds are shuttered.

Exchange traded products saw year-to-date net cash inflows of more than $100 billion through November, according to data from the National Stock Exchange. A big chunk of that went into bond ETFs as investors looked for safety.

Needless to say, some ETFs have had a difficult time gathering assets with so many investors content to hide out in cash.

Large ETF providers have already covered most of the major investment themes, capitalizing on their first-mover advantage, whereas new product launches are slicing the markets into ever smaller segments, The Wall Street Journal reports.

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Years ago, I found myself sitting in law school in Moot Court wearing an oversized itchy blue suit. It was a horrible experience. In a desperate attempt to avoid anything like that in the future I enrolled in a tax course. I loved it. I signed up for another. Before I knew it, in addition to my JD, I had a LL.M Taxation. I needed only to don my cape…. taxgirl® was born. Today, I live and work in Philadelphia, PA, one of the best cities in the world . I landed in the City of Brotherly Love by way of Temple University School of Law. While at law school, I interned at the estates attorney division of the IRS. At IRS, I participated in the review and audit of federal estate tax returns. I even took the lead on a successful audit. At

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