Greetings! Here we are finally into April and wow what a start to the year. The first quarter of 2011 was the best start in the markets since the first quarter of 1999. See article Which, if you remember the tech-bubble crash in year 2000 it's like saying that this was the best new launch of a ship since the Titanic. Nevertheless, January 3, 2011 to March 31, 2011 was very good to investors in equities. Here are the numbers:
January 3, 2011 March 31, 2011 Difference DJIA 11,577.43 12,319.73 +742.30 NASDAQ 2,676.65 2,781.07 +104.42 S&P 500 1,257.62 1,325.83 + 68.21 (yahoofinance.com)
Let's hope we continue to crawl out of the ashes of the "great recession" and begin adding jobs throughout the rest of the year. With jobs will come even more economic growth and a partial recovery in real estate prices that so many people are looking for. After going through the last few years it will be fun to participate in the recovery.
Enough happy stuff; on to my complaints! All winter I longingly eye the calendar and think of April showers and May flowers and when April finally arrives I am always disappointed. I'm not down because of the weather which is nicer than February, but because of the double hammering we get from the IRS. Like many of you , my household gets a tax-bill due for the previous tax-year and a tax-bill due for the first quarter of 2011 estimated taxes. Then to make matters worse, June 15 is right around the corner for the year's second estimated tax bill. Now come to think about it, throw in January 15's payment and from January 15 to June 15 we send in four checks to the IRS--the whole rest of the year we send in only two! I would like to meet the bureaucrat who came up with this perverse little scheduling trick. And do you think it is just a coincidence that April 15th is so far from November elections?
Ok, OK, enough belly-aching about taxes--heck, half the country hardly pays any and many people get refunds this time of year. Oh, by the way, if you owe you have an extra weekend to enjoy a flush bank account--Federal taxes are due at the post office this year on April 18th (Maryland still wants them on April 15th however.)
In an unofficial survey I've been asking my circle of friends if they are paying more income tax this year than they did last year and it has been unanimous so far; everyone is paying more for 2010 than they did for 2009. This should bode well for the tax revenues of our Local, State and Federal Governments.
A big bonus for the tax collectors this year is that the Required Minimum Distributions from IRA's came back in 2010. Remember in 2009 they were suspended and many people took advantage of a year where they were not required to take money from their IRA's. This saved taxes primarily from the reduced income, but secondarily too from reduced taxation of their Social Security Benefits and lowered thresholds for itemizing certain deductions. Consequently I think the death of government due to under-funding has been greatly exaggerated and I expect to see stories in May about how the tax-revenue collected was much higher than originally expected. Marty | 
