Hint, Hint

The Three-Day Weekend Experiment
By Freakonomics

For the past year, all government employees in Utah have had a four-day workweek. The results of the trial run are in, and they look good: the state says it saved $1.8 million in electrical bills, eliminating 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, while 82 percent of workers say they like the new scheme.

One minor downside of the new schedule from an estate planning perspective is that working with any government entity in transferring assets into duly executed trusts or other estate planning documents excludes Fridays. But asset transfer work usually can be done through the mail and does not require personal visits to government buildings.

Dig Utah!

Rock art from Range Creek from the Utah history site.

Utah's Range Creek, one of the most pristine examples of Fremont Indian culture, is the subject of a PBS show in which archaeologists armed with pricey technology parachute into a site for 72 hours.

"I've been in archaeology for 30 years and have never seen anything like it," said Eric Deetz of the site in central Utah, occupied by the Fremont 1,000 years ago and left virtually undisturbed until 2001, when it was purchased by a nonprofit Trust for Public Land. The site is now owned by the state, according to this Salt Lake Tribune article.

Archaeologists are excited because the sites are neither looted nor disturbed.

More Proof - Utah is like a whole different (Vulcan) planet.

If you go to the new "Star Trek" film this weekend, you'll be seeing Utah scenery. Spock's homeland Vulcan was shot in Emery County, in an area called San Rafael Swell in eastern Utah.

Emery County Economic Director Mike McCandless said the crew spent five days at the reef. The SL Trib quotes executive producer Bryan Burk as saying when the location scouts came back with images of the area, “This is the most beautiful place on the planet. In fact, it should be its own planet.”




Emery County

Susan Boyle hearts Donny Osmond

Most viewed video of all time. That girl's going to need some estate planning.

Chances are you've seen the performance of Scottish woman on a "Britain's Got Talent". Her beautiful voice may be in part due to her teenage crush on Utah's heart throb, Donny Osmond.

Boyle’s brother said she would listen to Osmond’s records over and over again, and practice singing. She had Osmond posters all over her walls, and she would lock herself in her room and sing his songs as loud as possible. She'd stand in front the mirror and sing until she achieved perfection.

People around the world can’t get enough of her. So far the internet clips of her recent performance are the most viewed ever and have recorded over 100 million hits.

Video Here

Odd Ending

This building in Salt Lake City, Utah was build 118 years ago and housed the Internation Order of Odd Fellows. It weighs 5 million pounds. The feds want the space for a court. In order to save the building they have lifted it up on rollers and are going to move it out, turn it around, and set it down on the other side of the street.

The building has been sitting like that since last fall. It has been reported to have suffered structural damage when it was raised. An engineer told ABC4 news that he could not assure than that building would survive the move. The project is going to cost more than 7 million dollars.

The Promise of Getting Higher . . .

. . . is bringing people to Utah. Tourism is up 16% since the 2004 start of the Utah Office of Tourism's "Life Elevated" campaign. Temple Square and Zions National Park are the main draws.

More Reasons to Read

Utah State Parks is launching the Check It Out! program, which allows library-card holders to check out a state park pass at 49 libraries or bookmobiles across the state. Participating libraries will be offering the passes by May 1, if not sooner.

The park pass provides day-use entry for up to eight people in the same vehicle to 42 parks, ranging from the red-rock of Snow Canyon near St. George to Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho border. Normal day-use fees range from $2 to $10.


See the SL Tribune for details here

Who could have predicted that people would like a shorter work week?

Utah planners say they have not seen the energy savings they expected when a four-day, 10-hour-a-day schedule was ordered for state employees, but there has been another benefit: an uptick in productivity and worker satisfaction. Though some don't like the longer days, seventy percent of Utah state employees prefer the shorter work week. Not only that but, good for their employer, they are taking less leave and working less overtime.

NPR

We laugh until we cry

Checking in on local news . . .

In scientific studies, Utah always comes out on top -- or all the way on the bottom.

In surveys conducted one year apart, by institutions no less illustrious than Gallup and Mental Health America, Utah was named, respectively, the happiest state in the country and the most depressed state in the union.

Chinese Version of Utah's DeChristopher

Also from Forbes

The Yves Saint Laurent Estate Auction included two bronzes that were looted in 1860 by French and British Troops. They are two of a dozen that decorated a fountain at a the Summer Palace in Bejing. The Chinese want them back. Seven have been found; the whereabouts of the five others are unknown.

Cai Mingchao bid 4 million dollars for them in protest of a French court decision that let the sale go forward despite a claim filed by the Association for the Protection of Art of China in Europe.

"I've never heard of a political protest like this, by making a giant bid," Ralph E. Lerner, co-author of Art Law: The Guide for Collectors, Investors, Dealers and Artists, is quoted as saying.

But Utah's Infamous "Bidder 70" is the trail blazer in the art of Protest by Auction.
Bidder 70 is Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah economics student wanted to disrupt the auction and had no means to pay for his winning bids.

DeChristopher won the bidding on 13 parcels totaling 22,000 acres for $1.7 million dollars, and drove up the price of several other pieces of land.

Utah Treasures

Permit Me

Utah Politics from the Salt Lake Tribune

Add It To Your "To Do" List
The Senate gave unanimous approval today to Senate Bill 142: Disposition of a Dead Body.

Utah will require individuals to get a permit from the Medical Examiner before they dispose of a body, either through cremation or shipping the corpse out of the country. There will of course be a fee.

Robert Gehrke at the Trib is happy he got rid of his bunch of dead bodies last week while it was still legal.

Don't go it alone!

SL Tribune is reporting on a tax mistake that took four years to resolve and hundreds of dollars in interest and penalties.

Last fall, the a Tooele couple agreed to pay $3,178 that the commission said they owed in capital-gains taxes after selling a small rental property. The state tacked on an additional $449 in interest.

The couple made an error in calculating their capital gains on their 2005 return.

The two are now retired and living on a fixed income.

On Jan. 20, the couple received a letter from the Tax Commission declaring they owed another $421.76 -- and warned that if they didn't pay in two weeks, a lien would be placed on their house.

Dee Talbot, the director of State Taxpayers Services, a division of the Tax Commission, said he recalculated that penalty and eventually lowered it to $116.

Is it over?

If they had paid the tax and then appealed, they would have saved the second penalty, Talbot explained.

The Taxpayer Services director noted that to avoid such misunderstandings, the state offers on-line tutorials and free tax advice for anyone who needs help filling out tax forms.

Help calculating taxes
The Utah Taxpayer Service offers on-line tutorials at Utah Tax Commission.

Taxpayers can call for assistance in filing tax forms at 801-297-2200.

And don't forget the AARP Tax-Aide sites starting February 1st. These sites are for middle and low-income taxpayers and they in several places in the state and all over they country. There are 13 sites in the Salt Lake area alone. Info here.

Local News

SALT LAKE CITY - Two close calls

A Salt Lake City man was stuck in his bathtub for almost six days.
The 82-year old man had not been heard from since close to New Years Day.

A neighbor found him after she didn't see him walking his dog for a few days.
He stayed alive by drinking the tap water from the bathtub, but is suffering from dehydration.

This type of accident is happening more often as the population continues to get older. He says it’s a good idea to check on the elderly from time to time.

Only two days ago and Ogden woman was found stuck in a floor vent for 30 hours. When she was pulled from the vent, her legs were purple with several cuts and scratches and she was dehydrated.

Automation at the SL County Recorder's Office

The Salt Lake County Recorder's Office, which handles more than a thousand real-estate documents daily, is going high-tech. Half of the office’s workload is shifting online. Soon the microfiche files will be replaced by an electronic database of historic documents. The old large aerial photos will be converted to an online mapping system similr to Google Earth. The plan is to eventually conduct three-quarters of the Recording Office’s business online.

The improved efficiency in the Recorder’s Office resulted in a 2009 budget that is smaller than any time since 2002.

Most of the information is not freely available there is a subscription fee of $25.00 a month with an initial set-up fee of $150.00 which includes 1st and last month access.

I prefer my own bed, thanks.

AARPs research report

A Balancing Act - Funding for Long-Term Care Programs

A summary of the AARP Report and the Utah data.

Eighty-seven percent of people 50 and older with disabilities want to be cared for in their own homes. Yet the Medicaid program continues to allocate the bulk of its resources for institutional services.

Medicaid dollars on average can support nearly three people in home and community-based services for every person in a nursing home.

"The ability of some states to accomplish substantial reforms for older people and adults with physical disabilities—as well as successes in the mental retardation/developmental disabilities movement, which have led to increased home and community-based services options for many—demonstrates that obstacles to change can be overcome."

Compared to the U.S. average, Utah allocates 96% of its Medicaid long-term care spending for older people and adults with physical disabilities to nursing homes.

Utah has one of the nation’s most unbalanced systems and Medicaid trends indicate the little progress has occurred in the state in recent years. The number of participants receiving home and community based services decreased while the number of participants in nursing homes remained relatively constant between 1999 and 2004. From FY 2001 to FY 2006, the increase in Medicaid spending on nursing homes was $52 million, 26 times the increase in spending on HCBS. The increase alone was more than eight times the total HCBS spending for older people and adults with disabilities.





The discrepancy in millions expended (6 - 5 = +2 ?) must be some type of rounding.

US Estate Taxes for 2007

IRS Data on 2007 Estate Taxes *All figures are estimates based on a sample. Money Amounts are in thousands of dollars. IRSTax status and size of gross estate

All Returns	#Returns	Net Estate Tax
Under $2.0 million	17,416	22,508,292
$2.0 million ‹ $3.5 million	1409	136,472
$3.5 million ‹ $5.0 million	8483	2,352,847
$5.0 million ‹ $10.0 million	2860	2,371,313
$10.0 million ‹ $20.0 million	2906	5,173,865
$20.0 million or more	654	8,027,849

Utah Net Estate Tax # is 34, amount is $73,585.

States with largest number of estates paying taxes

California	3637	4,697,954
Florida	1667	2,863,861
Texas	906	1,282,736
New York	1339	2,209,342
New Jersey	569	520592

Lowest Amounts Paid by states

Alaska*

Gross # filed 29 / Gross tax - 115,862

Idaho	6	50825
Mississippi	41	29779

N Dakota*

Gross # filed 71 / Gross tax amt - 261,436

RI	40	49960
South Dakota	51	53,347

*Data deleted to prevent disclosure of individual taxpayer data.

Total Returns with estate taxes due	17,416
Net amount due	22,508,292

Estate Tax Calculator at www.mystatewill.com
If you are in Utah and have estate tax issues or need help with estate planning, filing 706s, etc. get more information at our website or contact us for more information. website. We can help.