Get Your Money

Just a short note today. The market comments of last week pretty much still apply. If you've been watching the weekly MACD indicator, you know it hasn't signaled a buy yet for the major indexes, although it's extremely close for the Russell 2000 small-cap stocks, and pretty close for the Nasdaq 100. It's got further to go on the large-cap indexes.

Meanwhile I normally talk about income taxes this time of year, but due to the market scare I've been concentrating more on that. But I do have two short tax tips:

1. Don't ignore the phone tax refund! This is free money (basically $30 to $60) for almost everyone, but many thousands of taxpayers have not claimed it. There's even a special line near the end of the tax form: "Credit for telephone excise tax paid." So fill it in and get your money.

2. You have till the tax-filing deadling (Tuesday, April 17) to make your IRA contribution for 2006, and then it goes away forever. If you mail it in, it just has to be postmarked by April 17. Don't ignore this tax break. The limit for 2006 is $4,000 (which is reduced for higher-income taxpayers), but if you turned 50 or more during 2006 you can contribute $1,000 extra.