What I learned at winter tax camp.

For the past two days, I've been at OSCPA Mega Tax conference in Columbus.

Here's some of the things that I learned.

1) I think I would have rather attended the Ohio Turfgrass convention next door. It looked like a lot more fun.

2) How bad is this 1099 requirement mandated by the healthcare bill? So bad, that even the group who seeks to gain the most out of it (accountants) hate it and are aggressively lobbying against it.

3) Why you must fight to keep bad bills from becoming law? Take the 1099 issue for instance. Everyone..... and I mean EVERYONE knows it's bad law. There's been two votes to remove it and yet there it still stands.

4) When the experts on these issues answer "we don't know yet" on these healthcare provisions, it's pretty scary.

5) How is it that the number one issue discussed at a conference named "Mega Tax Conference" is health care? What does that tell you?

6) If you are a PA resident, you can get up to $525 a week in unemployment benefits. Do the math and then ask yourself how aggressive you'd be in getting a job when not working pays $13.13 an hour?

7) That John Kasich is already staffing his appointments with a bunch of Bob Taft leftover douche bags. That doesn't bode well for Ohio.

8) That tax law used to be changed after thoughtful deliberations and now the "professionals" we vote for just continue to "wing it".

9) Ohio's minimum wage increases to $7.40 an hour effective 1/1/11. That should really boost the jobs picture here.

10) Here's a table showing the Ohio general revenue fund growth since 1968. You'll see that the state budget more doubled between the years 1968 and 1973. Why? The state introduced an income tax in 1971. From that point on it's been happy days for everyone in state government.

11) Politicians believe that everything in the budget is a necessity and therefore is off limits to cuts. If that's the case, how did the state possibly make it from the years 1803 to 1970 without most of this crap?

It's still the spending stupid!