We all waited with bated breath until the end of last year, only to see Congress extend the Bush tax cuts for another two years. Although the legislation passed, it did create some issues that you should be aware of in filing your taxes this year.

Let's start with property taxes; something most of us have learned to despise. Until last year, if you owned a home you were able to deduct a portion of your state property taxes in the form of an enhancement or an addition to your standard deduction. The deduction was worth between $500 and $1,000 depending on whether you were married or single. This provision was not extended, but you can still claim the deduction providing you itemize your

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Tax time is drawing closer and as it does, the annual barrage of questions concerning investments, portfolios, dividends and capital gains distributions are keeping financial advisors and accountants quite busy.

"One of the most frustrating issues to me," writes a Long Island investor, I'll call Joey G., "are the mutual fund capital gain distributions."

As a large holder of mutual funds, every year, between November and December, Joey is hit with substantial taxable capital gain distributions from the mutual funds he owns.

"I have no idea how much they are going to be or when they are going to be distributed until it's too late, so there's no way I can plan

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The lame-duck Congress is finally getting to work. The president is horse trading with the Republican majority to extend the bush tax cuts before the end of the year. At the same time, the Obama budget deficit commission has released its findings and the full 18-member panel will vote on these proposals on Friday. Be prepared for some fireworks.

When the President Obama first appointed the bipartisan panel led by Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, to come up with ideas to cut the exploding deficit, I wrote that we would have to wait until after elections before their findings would be

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