Last week I bought a groupon for certified MS Excel training (we are on Office 2003) that I figured would help with getting familiar with 2010 if I got a new job with it, or if any job interviews require proficiency tests.
Now today there is one for
"Microsoft Office Certification Career Advancement Bundle (US$399 Value)
The Microsoft Office Certification Career Advancement Bundle includes online courses that prepare students for certification in Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Access, and Outlook. Students can complete each course at their own pace—generally each one takes less than a week—and utilize their skills with the 2010 versions of these programs to attain certification and boost marketability in administration, business, sales, IT, and other fields. Each bundle includes more than 30 hours of training materials, including instructor-led lectures, hands-on labs, multimedia presentations, and exam simulators. These courses do not include copies of any Microsoft Office programs"
Good investment?
I've been doing a similar training program (for 2007 because that's what I'm using now and last time I used Office was in 2004 so who knows what version that may have been, 2003 if I was lucky, I guess) that my temp agency provides for free - it does make me feel more competent and I figure certification is always nice. To spend my own money on, though, I don't know.
Wow, I think we were talking about investing in accountants, etc. here? We got our estimated return back from our tax guy and it looks good that we are getting a really significant refund (like $20K+) because of the massive loss we took on short selling the house. And we should be able to continue to carry writing these losses off for future years until we recoup the loss. THAT IS CRAZY PANTS BANANA TOWN.
He did mention us needing to keep our income up, so I assume this means it's a rich person tax thing, which is upsetting. Shouldn't people be able to get the losses back on their property regardless of their income/tax bracket? I mean, seriously.
Shouldn't people be able to get the losses back on their property regardless of their income/tax bracket?
Well, you can't get more money back from the fed than you gave them, right?
Yeah, that's what my accountant just said - as long as we make enough money to pay taxes on is all. OK, I've talked myself down from raging at injustice. Also, now I don't have to think of myself as being a rich person, because I am not.
Good investment?
I don't know. If you were totally unfamiliar with any of those products, maybe. Only if it's cheap, I think.
Nora, I inherited a loss from my grandparents that I've been able to deduct on my taxes for, uh, 6 years now? The years I don't have income I think it still carries over to be used in the future (it's a big loss and the number of years into the future that I will be using it given the limits on claiming that type of deduction each year make noticing whether it's gone down the last couple of years not that obvious).
That's why if you have a complicated situation (real estate, tenants, home business, etc.) a tax accountant can be worth their weight in gold, because they're going to spot things you can't even conceive of -- or tell you that writing something off one way is better than another way.
