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The interview Meter identifies common audit Express Answers. While process has been triggers and provides actionable fully professional, the streamlined to skip guidance to reduce audit risk. program is very easy to questions that don’t There’s a Deduction Maximizers 58 STRATEGIC FINANCE I January 2009 TECH FORUM A Blue and White January By Michael Castelluccio, Editor AS THE CALENDAR NUMBERS TUMBLE and we approach the end of the first full decade of the century, it Center in all but the Free and returns includes a zero tax rate might not be a bad time to look up and see how comput- Basic versions. The Center has on capital gains and qualified ing is faring in the upper atmospheres. more than 350 deductions dividends for taxpayers in the Some say the phenomenon of cloud computing has along with ItsDeductible®, the 10% or 15% tax bracket; a new only been with us for two or three years. Others say it’s as “blue book” for charitable first-time homebuyer credit of old as the Internet itself. It depends on how you define it. donations. The Business version up to $7,500 for those who America’s tech encyclopedia, Wikipedia, begins with includes customized interview purchased a home after April 9, the assumption that the “cloud” in cloud computing, forms for S Corporations 2008, and whose income is metaphorically, is the Internet. Cloud computing, then, (1120S), C Corporations (1120), below set limits—the credit according to the editors, is “a style of computing in which partnerships/LLCs (1065), and must be repaid to the federal IT-related capabilities are provided as a service allowing estates and trusts (1041). government (without interest) users to access technology-enabled services from the http://turbotax.intuit.com ratably over 15 years, in most Internet (‘in the cloud’) without knowledge of, expertise cases; and an additional stan- with, or control over the technology infrastructure that Lasser’s 2009 dard deduction of up to $500 supports them.” This is the SaaS (Software as a Service) This year’s oversized J.K. Lass- ($1,000 on joint returns) for real dimension. The wiki editors then quote an article from er’s™ Your Income Tax 2009 is estate taxes of homeowners IEEE Computing to outline the architecture. “Cloud 816 pages, and it ranges from a who don’t itemize their deduc- Computing is a paradigm in which information is per- review of “Tax News for 2008” tions. Additionally, the basic IRA manently stored in servers on the Internet and cached in its opening pages to a very contribution has been increased temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertain- useful glossary of terms near to $5,000, those 50 or older by ment centers, tablet computers, notebooks, and hand- the end of the volume. The tax year end can add another helds.” This is computing power offered as a utility. guide explains and highlights $1,000, and surviving spouses If a group or company scatters data centers around the the midyear changes and multi- who sell their home within two world and makes their grid available for a monthly fee, ple tax bills introduced this sea- years of the other spouse’s you have computing that’s just like gas or electricity son. What’s new on 2008 death qualify for a $500,000 available from a grid. In fact, some include grid comput- home sale exclusion for gain. ing in their definition of cloud computing, while others Along with the usual wealth of say the cloud is one step above this kind of service. tax prep information, this year’s One step above because the distributed computing guide includes six tax breaks to available to Skype users or SETI volunteers searching help those who lost their job. for alien signals isn’t located along a pattern of nodes The Lasser support network in a grid structure. The centers are everywhere in the includes the JKLasser.com web- cloud, and the locations change. The service then cre- site (a subscription-based Web ates “one machine”—a worldwide computer. When you service) and the free e-mail plug in a radio, it draws from but doesn’t become part newsletter. The paperback guide continued on next page is available for $18.95. January 2009 I STRATEGIC FINANCE 59 TECHNOLOGY TECH FORUM of the power grid. on open standards. IBM has a four-pronged strategy to cap- There are also arguments over what fits in the box that ture the cloud computing opportunity by: 1) delivering its defines cloud computing, so, at this point, maybe we should own cloud services portfolio; 2) helping ISVs design, build, just assume the definition is wobbly and move on to look at deliver and market cloud services; 3) helping clients inte- some of the examples of cloud computing. grate cloud services into their business; and 4) providing Amazon.com is an acknowledged pioneer in cloud com- cloud computing environments to businesses.” puting, beginning in 2002 with the offerings of its Amazon At the end of October, Microsoft announced Microsoft Web Services. Paid for as you would pay any other utility, Azure, an OS (operating system) for the cloud, and the the Web Services are a collection of remote computing ser- company promised simple versions of its Word, Excel, vices you access over the Internet. They include the Elastic PowerPoint, and OneNote to be made available online. Compute Cloud (virtual private servers), Flexible Payment Service (an interface for micropayments), Simple Storage RECESSION CLOUDS Service, SimpleDB, and others. It’s ironic that the scorched economic landscape hasn’t dark- Google, another leader, offers applications online for ened the skies for the computing environment above. businesses and individuals hosted on their worldwide net- Rather, the heat has powered rapid growth in cloud net- work of server farms. Google’s SaaS business apps include works, both private and corporate. At a time when capital messaging, collaboration, and security for on-premise e- for new IT investments is difficult to obtain, cloud comput- mail. There are also the Google Docs programs that provide ing is the kind of outsourcing that can both save money and sophisticated word processing, presentation, and spread- increase capacity. In an IT World online article, Gartner sheet functions. These programs are free and reachable from claims this kind of outsourcing will accelerate, and the ana- anywhere you can connect to the cloud—your docs are out lysts “predict it will also become standard for large compa- there, too, with no need to hang a clacking collection of nies to build their own highly automated private cloud thumb drives around your neck whenever you’re away from networks in which all resources can be managed from a sin- your PC.