Eva Rosenberg	The Week of April 5th, 2009

TaxMama.com

1. What’s in your wallet right now?

At 6:03 am today, my wallet contains: 2 lipsticks, 1 key, the business card of our cab driver in New Orleans, 1 $5 bill, 3 $1 bills, 2 dimes and 2 pennies.

2. What do you wish your parents taught you about money?

I wish that my father had been more honest with me. He never told me that he was really afraid because he simply never understood how to manage money. But he did keep pestering me to take bookkeeping and secretarial courses in high school. I refused. If I had understood that he really needed my help, I'd have helped.

3. What is your worst habit around finances?

I don't know that I have a bad habit . . . hmmm . . . Perhaps it's my willingness to take risks, even without all the facts in hand. While they may not all pan out, I understand the costs (money AND the time to re-earn it) and go in with open eyes.

4. What makes you happy?

Just about everything (except recalcitrant electronic devices).

5. Personal philosophy around money?

Build a solid financial base so you can always take care of your fundamental living expenses so you never have to turn to others for help. Take sensible steps to ensure that YOU, not your illness or poverty, control your retirement. And make sure that you always have enough money to also enjoy TODAY. Remember, tomorrow just might never come . . . it didn't for my dad.

6. Where does money come from?

Just about anywhere. If you have a solid set of fundamental skills, you can be dropped anywhere on the planet and be able to support yourself.

7. What would you do with a million dollars?

Honestly? At my age? 1) I would buy my mother the first new car she will ever have owned. 2) I would pay off my mortgage. No more payments. 3) I would do some remodeling we've always meant to do - add a bathroom, completely re-do the master bath, and re-model the kitchen. Perhaps even add an Endless Pool in an enclosed patio, so we could swim year-round. That would easily eat up about $150,000. 4) Spread about $100,000 among various charities.

That would leave about $600,000. With the interest rates these days, that would only return about $30,000 per year. It's not much, but without a mortgage, that would be enough to live on if either of us couldn't work any more. So, 5) we'd save that money and select some relatively low-risk investments that provide a cash flow. And as long as we're working, we'd keep the cash flow reinvested. Ideas? REITs (real estate investment trusts) and TICs (tenant in common) properties. They provide about a 7% cash flow per year, and a big profit when the properties sell, which can be rolled over in tax-free exchanges.

8. What is your most prized possession?

Hmmm . . . if I were to run out of the house if it were burning, what would I take with me (besides my husband and my hard drives for business purposes)? Some photographs - family/childhood photographs are irreplaceable. Other than that, my small collection of books autographed by people I admire.

9. Who is your role model?

Not in any particular order:

Katharine Hepburn. Beautiful woman, she always managed to play strong, smart women who didn't put up with any nonsense, while keeping her sense of humor.

The Glorias, Steinem and Allred. They changed the world for women. They did it loudly and aggressively, I'm working on doing it a little more quietly.

Stanlee Phelps, author of The Assertive Woman. Knowing her briefly, seeing her, I learned that you could be assertive without being obnoxious and angry.

All the Southern Belles and their mothers who taught me that you can be beautiful and feminine, yet control all situations with your skills and your wiles instead of shrillness and demands.

Jim Blasingame, the Small Business Advocate. I call him the gentleman of the airwaves. He persevered and struggled to achieve his success. He's earned his accolades.

Shel Horowitz, author (frugalfun.com). He lives a good life, balancing his family relationships, his work and his writing, without ever obsessing about getting rich. He knows what's enough. And he inspires ethical behavior.

Oprah Winfrey. She's doing the kinds of things I've always wanted to do - inspire people to read, to be kind to each other, and to take positive actions to improve your own life. She doesn't glorify or encourage self-pity or whining.

Brad Waller, co-founder of epage.com. Like Shel, he practices balance in life. He and his partners quietly built a solid Internet business, without debt. He travels regularly to trade shows, and includes his wife and child so they are a part of his business life too.

David Brin, author and rocket scientist. I only wish I could write half as well as he does. His books have so many levels of subtlety and humor, it takes about three readings to catch them all. Of course, I also admire his business savvy. He had the sense to improve the accuracy of his science AND to build an audience by allowing the science fiction clubs at Cal-Tech and the Jet Propulsion Lab and MIT to read the drafts of his books and provide feedback, corrections and ideas before he sent the books off to his publisher. (You may know him for the Kevin Costner film, The Postman; trust me, the book was MUCH better.)

There are many more people who are my role models. In each situation or instance, their faces or frames of reference would come to mind and I'd ask, how would they handle such a situation?

10. What is your greatest achievement?

My Internet presence and writing - TaxMama.com and all the related tax sites, books, and MarketWatch column. (Can you believe that I am a national tax columnist - at DOW JONES????) Why? It's made it possible to help thousands of people who didn't know where to turn when they were losing sleep about tax problems or fears. And it's provided a non-threatening arena for tax professionals around the world to learn more than they ever expected to about taxes, without ever exposing their fears about how little they know.

11. How did TaxMama.com get started?

I started an online business and dumped a lot of money into it hiring expensive and useless professionals and failed. So after creating the HelpDesk as a venue for Internet businesses and developers to help each other avoid that kind of problem, I decided that I should try my own hand at putting up a site that could help people with their tax problems. It started out with the idea of providing good articles and tips via a newsletter on a monthly basis and turned into a weekly newsletter because of all the questions people were sending. And now there are even daily TaxQuips. It consumes my life. Recently, I sold most of my tax practice so I could spend more time answering questions and teaching people to cut their taxes, not run afoul of IRS, and have fun dealing with their finances.

12. What contributions to society do you want to make?

There are two overall things I want to achieve:

1) I want to change the tax system so it's not as complicated, terrifying, and burdensome. In small ways, TaxMama is doing that now, with my partnership with IRS's dedicated Taxpayer Education team, and with my contacts at IRS's press office in Washington, DC, and my contacts within the Taxpayers Advocate's office or volunteer panels. Whenever I run across flaws in the system, I am able to bring it to their attention and have someone actually fix the problems rather quickly. Some things require more time, or require an act of Congress. But I am learning how to get the information and constructive suggestions to the right people, so changes are made.

If I could, I'd push for a flat tax. If not, I'll just keep finding ways to gradually make the system less cumbersome, especially for small businesses. Do you have any idea how many forms and government agencies a small business has to deal with? It's unconscionable! How DARE government make it that hard for a small business to function? I'll change that. I will.

2) I want to open up people's worlds and minds to welcome strangers and foreigners. This is a small planet. With communications, it's getting smaller yet. It's really time to stop looking at immigrants as a target of suspicion and fear and instead as a treasure and a resource and as good friends.

13. If you could buy one thing right now what would it be?

Three extra hours of sleep. No? Not possible? An Endless Pool.

14. Favorite activity that doesn’t cost a dime?

Curling up with my husband and watching videos or reading books or finding one of the free concerts or plays around Los Angeles. Do you have any idea how cheaply you can entertain yourself around LA?

15. How do you indulge yourself?

Bubble baths and going to plays.

Eva Rosenberg, TaxMama to her clients and fans, writes the weekly Tax Watch column for MarketWatch.com, a Dow Jones company. Eva is licensed as an enrolled agent and represents taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service. She authored one of the top tax books of 2005 (according to Entrepreneur Magazine), Small Business Taxes Made Easy, and you can hear her voice as a regular guest on a variety of radio shows around the country or tune in to her daily TaxQuips.

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