Before this new housing rescue law, the savvy taxpayer could convert his old rental or vacation home into a principal residence, live in it for two years, and then sell it to take advantage of the $250,000 and $500,000 exclusion of gain rules. Now, you need to make revisions to that old tax plan to cope with this new law.

Most of the business property that you will expense and depreciate in this year’s tax return is MACRS (modified accelerated cost recovery system) property. When you convert this property to personal use, you need to know four rules to avoid recapture problems.

You may deduct your business golf when you do it right. In fact, golf that qualifies for the special sporting event deduction produces double the tax benefit of regular business golf.

The new housing rescue law (1) creates a $7,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers; (2) creates up to a $500 property tax deduction for the taxpayer who does not itemize deductions; (3) destroys some or all of the $250,000 tax-free exclusion for sales of vacation homes and rentals converted to principal residences; and establishes 1099-style reporting to the IRS of gross income from credit card receipts.

Help this new bill pass into a law. H.R. 6601 proposes reasonable reform on home office use, cell phones, and business meals and entertainment.

Mr. and Mrs. Clark hired a new tax advisor. He told them that because they qualified as being in the real property business, they had available to them the tax law option of “group or not group” your rental properties and that grouping could release tax deductions currently trapped by the passive loss rules.

Pay attention to the rules on what makes a business mile and what makes a personal mile so that you can achieve the best possible vehicle deductions.

You can avoid the allowed and allowable double tax whammy with this important, and underutilized, tax law exception.

With one exception, you may not deduct a facelift as a medical expense because you use your face for both business and personal purposes. As to deducting the facelift as a business expense, this has not worked out so far.