Katrina is going to impact us greatly in the wallets.

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I was a statutory employee last year but not now. I usually do my own taxes but am having trouble with form 8829 and am not sure if the accountant can squeeze me in at this late date. Thought I would try here first for help. I use my den exclusively for work (almost) and am going to take this 7% of our home as a business expense.

Under Part II... Lines 10 and 11. Deductible mortgage interest and real estate taxes...I am going to take the entire amount on schedule A, so, hopefully, do not have to enter anything here.

line 17. Insurance. Are we allowed to take a portion of our homeowners insurance as a deduction? I have no separate business insurance.

Line 19. Utilities. I know I can take 7% of my electric, gas, water, garbage (I think), but what about phones? We have both cell and regular phone. When I call, I use the regular phone for toll free numbers, but the cell phone to my boss who does not have a toll free #.

Then, I need to find the value of my home for Part III. I guess I will check home sales in the neighborhood and go by that.

Geez..sorry for sounding like such a dummy. I can do all the other...capital gains, etc, just not sure what is allowed for home expenses.

As I say, I will try to get in to the accountant, but any advise for any of this form would be greatly appreciated. I cannot complete schedule A until I have my Profit or Loss done, which I cannot complete until I do this form.

Would it be possible to set up a Katrina board? I work with a lot of the MTs, QAs, supervisors and ancillary personnel from the New Orleans area. We are all looking to make sure that our friends and coworkers from that area are safe or if they are in need, what they need. Could you set up a board so that those of us looking for people can ask about them and for displaced people to try to find some help? I think it would be greatly appreciated.

As most of you know by now, lots of the evacuees are refusing to go because they don't want to leave their pets behind. For all you you pet lovers out here, I've found two sites that are trying to help out in this area that I thought I'd pass on...

Everyone is playing the blame game. It doesn't matter who did what or did not do now. What matters now is to go on with life and reach in our hearts (Although some of you do not seem to have one) and give to the less fortunate. This disaster will not only effect those in the coastal areas. This will effect the whole United States and the world in some form or another. Louisiana had a population estimated at 4 million. More than a 1/4 of that population is without homes. Can you imagine the indignity they indure living in shelters? As a Louisiana resident, I would like to point out that the victims in the media are not the only victims. They are the poorest of poor. They do have many families and individuals that are displaced, living with relative, hotel rooms, no jobs. Other states have taken in many of the victims but there are small rural communities and cities all over Louisiana itself that have taken in these people. In the small high school in my community, enrollment went up by 200 students almost doubling the student body. The small Catholic school my son attends took in over 40 students. Grocery stores running out of food because the extra people and trucks being delayed. The list of changes and difficulties go on.

Like 9/11, this disaster will forever change America. Not all of the changes will be bad although it seems that way now. This is the time people should stick together and focus on the good things that are happening, not the few people that take advantage of the situation or the people who have no souls and think of themselves. Take an active roll in helping these people, you are not only helping them, you are also helping yourself and the whole country. I have visited the shelters and I have close friends who have actually gone to help with the rescue. Again, this did not just happen to the gulf coast.

I will continue to say an extra prayer for all victims, and especially those of you who seem not to have a heart or soul where others are concerned.

Does anyone know of contacts in Mississippi/Alabama that are needing help for their people who have lost everything? We chose to donate cash to the Salvation Army. By the time I got around to cleaning out my closets, neither the SA or ARC were taking clothing donations and I'm one of those people who is very bad about buying things and then never wearing them so much of the stuff has tags still attached, not exactly junk. Now that it's gathered up, I'll just donate it to our local Helping Hands but would like do whatever we can do to help the people of Miss/AL in particular. It seems they are the "forgotten refugees." At least in our area, we see very little about them but did see a news clip last night that looked like they were as devastated as NO, if not more so. Surely they need help too? TIA for any info.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House majority leader late Tuesday tried to deflect criticism of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by saying "the emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up," then announced a short time later that House hearings examining that response had been canceled.

Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said House Republican leaders instead want a joint House-Senate panel set up to conduct a "congressional review" of the issue.

Tempers flared Tuesday during a contentious closed-door meeting between House members and Cabinet secretaries in charge of directing Katrina relief efforts. A Republican representative stood up and said, "All of you deserve failing grades. The response was a disaster," CNN was told by lawmakers emerging from the meeting.

But DeLay countered that assessment later in a news conference by saying that the onus for responding to emergencies fell to local officials.

"It's the local officials trying to handle the problem. When they can't handle the problem, they go to the state, and the state does what they can to, and if they need assistance from FEMA and the federal government they ask for it and it's delivered," DeLay said.

He added that Alabama and Mississippi did a much better job of responding quickly than Louisiana. Alabama and Mississippi have Republican governors.

Rest of story link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/07/katrina.congress/index.html

Right now they have no idea when it will be back up and they're warning everyone in Georgia about potential $3.00 and above for gas by the weekend as well as possible gas shortages. The governor and energy officials are working on trying to get emergency shipments from other sources.

I'm glad I have a full tank and work from home - hopefully I can ride this crisis out but I know others don't have the work at home luxury.