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With just over one month until individual income taxes must be filed with the IRS, Congress is yet again considering a last-minute change to tax laws that will only further complicate the preparation of 2009 income tax returns.

Following the earthquake in Chile, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee introduced legislation that would allow taxpayers to deduct on their 2009 income tax returns donations made in 2010 for Chilean earthquake relief. Congress took the same action in response to the earthquake that struck Haiti earlier this year.

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Foursquare, the location-based service where users check in and earn badges¹, is becoming a victim of its own success. Recently surpassing one million checkins per week, the service has experienced very short, intermittent interruptions.

Twice in the last two weeks, I’ve encountered Foursquare’s version of Twitter’s now-infamous “Fail Whale.” In Foursquare’s case, the outage notice depicts a a mayor² adorned with a cracked crown accompanied by the message, “Looks like we’ve got some problems on our end. We’re on it though – stay tuned!”

Granted, a short outage once a week is nothing to complain about, but it further confirms the service’s growing popularity.

This past Thursday, Sirius|XM released its Premium Online streaming application for the BlackBerry Curve (8500 & 8900), Bold (9000 & 9700), Storm, Storm2 and Tour. As a longtime subscriber to Sirius (and, in the interest of full disclosure, a shareholder), I must admit I got overly excited about the announcement. My excitement waned, however, when I realized that a separate subscription is needed after the seven-day free trial.

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Since switching this site to the Intense Debate (ID) commenting system, one function I missed was the ability to integrate reCAPTCHA¹ into my comment forms. While I understand some are not fans of the system that adds nearly inscrutable text to a form that then must be typed in to the accompanying box to continue, the mechanism does significantly reduce the volume of comment spam.

reCAPTCHA challenge - the obscured text must be entered into the box below it before a form is submitted

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Having recently passed the six-months-on-unemployment mark, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this experience has meant for me. Overwhelmingly, my thoughts turned to whether or not I’m using my unintentional freedom to identify and further my career goals, improve my mental health, and expand my social network. Even though I still find myself without a job, I believe the answer to all three inquiries is yes.

After taking a rather circuitous route to becoming an accountant, I never identified the role I saw the degree playing in my career path. I assumed that at some point I would become a CPA, but beyond that, I had no plan. My intentions were always focused on the near future, on matters such as where I would live and how I would pay the bills. For some months after losing my job, my nearsightedness continued. I was content to travel, put off studying for the CPA exam, and tinker with WordPress.

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To better showcase my web development work, I’ve relocated the pages related to my WordPress plugins to http://www.ethitter.com/plugins/. Any future announcements concerning plugin updates and new offerings will be hosted at ethitter.com.

As part of the move, my plugin development feed is now http://feeds.ldmh.us/ETHPluginDev. FeedBurner does not automatically redirect renamed feeds, so please update your reader accordingly. Anyone subscribed by email, however, should continue to receive updates.

As the Journal of Accountancy reported yesterday, a Swiss court blocked the release of confidential information identifying the owners of 26 Swiss bank accounts sought in the IRS’ ongoing tax-fraud investigation. Considering that the earlier settlement entitled the IRS to information on 4,450 accounts, this is an almost imperceptible victory for proponents of Swiss bank secrecy. Nonetheless, for the owners of those accounts, the decision is certainly more than welcome.

The ruling, delivered by a Swiss administrative tribunal, determined that simply failing to file an informational form identifying the account owner as a U.S. citizen (IRS From W-9) does not constitute tax fraud. Since the tribunal ruled that its decision could not be appealed, the owners of the 26 accounts in question are, at least for now, safe from further scrutiny, and ultimately, penalties and interest on unreported earnings. As the settlement reached earlier this year between the IRS and Swiss government called for the release of roughly 10,000 names, the IRS will likely let the 26 accounts covered by the Bundesverwaltungsgericht’s¹ ruling in U.S. Taxpayers v. Swiss Federal Tax Administration forgo further investigation. It is unclear, however, whether more of the 10,000 names to be released will benefit from this ruling.

I was laid off in June 2009, and a typical response to what I planned to do with my newfound free time was, “I’ll study and sit for the CPA exam.” It’s now the end of January, and I’ve done neither.

To be honest, money was always a problem. The exam isn’t exactly inexpensive to take, comprising of four parts that each cost roughly $200 to register for. Then there’s the initial registration fee exacted simply to find out whether my education qualifies me. That second part always made me nervous, since my Bachelors degree is in Audio Engineering Technology. But, earlier this month, I finally sent my application and a check equivalent to my monthly car payment to the processing center in Tennessee.

On Saturday, I received an email from NTS Notification Service¹ that I was too afraid to open. After all, as an organizer for WordCamp Boston, I was too preoccupied to concern myself with the notice, and if the message was a rejection, I didn’t want to distract myself with that nightmare.

Thankfully, when I finally opened the email this morning, my apprehension was met with the following relief:

CPA Examination Candidate:

Your state board has found you eligible to take the Uniform CPA Examination.

So, having received my Notice to Schedule, I now have until late July to sit for the first section of the exam. That gives me 18 months from now to complete all four parts. Clearly, my procrastination (a skill that could likely earn me a doctorate, at least an honorary one) must end.

How ironic that the notice comes just as I’ve involved myself in myriad other engagements ranging from freelance web design and programming to audio engineering.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to visit another four National Wildlife Refuges. On Saturday, I traveled to Virginia for an Eddie from Ohio show at The Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria, VA, and, as part of my trip, planned enough time to visit a few refuges along the way.

My first stop took me to Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Basking Ridge, NJ. This location features numerous boardwalks and viewing blinds, permitting visitors access to areas deep within the refuge while simultaneously providing protection to view wildlife without disturbance. After four hours on the road, the opportunity to walk around for a bit was welcome, and I found myself amidst numerous white-tailed deer. Unfortunately, my shoes on the composite deck material of the boardwalks made enough noise to alert the deer and I was unable to photograph any. After wandering around Great Swamp for an hour in the relative warmth of 45° sunshine under a bright blue sky, I continued south towards Philadelphia.

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The now-infamous Fail Whale isn’t Twitter’s only creative way of responding to problems with its service. As I discovered last week while creating a Twitter list of everyone involved with WordCamp Boston, the folks behind the service have some other, equally creative, graphics to inform users that something has gone wrong.

Twitter's error indicating something has substantially gone awry.