It’s almost “D-Day” for taxes with less than 3 weeks left to file, and I’ve been giving a few gifts recently that may help out and I wanted to pass on as appreciation to my readers! The format is very similar to the last “Hank’s Handout” post with over $200 in prizes! The rules are simple and the prizes are worthy I think…
The prizes
There are a total of (5) prizes worth $200+ that will be given out:
(3) copies of H&R Block TaxCut Premium + efile ($90 value $30 a piece)
(1) Amazon.com gift certificate ($100 value)
(1) set of 500 Entrecard credits (advertising value, pricele$$)
The questions
So the question each person from the United States needs to answer is:
How will you spend/save your 2007 tax return? If you aren’t getting one, how much do you owe?
If you’re not in the US:
What is your favorite investment outside the US?
The entries
There are actually over 100 possible entries you can have if you use all the options, so read these rules closely!
1. Leave a relevant comment based on the question above (5 entries)
2. Sign up for my standard RSS feed (7 entries) [if already signed up contact me to have your 7 entries added]
3. Sign up for my RSS feed via EMAIL (10 entries)
4. Refer a friend to this blog and have them leave an entry here on this post. Contact me with the friend you referred (10 entries)
5. Provide a writeup based on the question above on your own blog and link back to this post (15 entries)
6. Add me to your BlogRoll (15 entries)
7. “Favoritize” any of my pages (limit 1) through your choice of preferred methods: Del.Icio.Us / Reddit / Digg / Stumble Upon / Technorati. After linking, use the contact page to shoot me an email to which page you’ve submitted (15 entries)
The countdown
If you’re a last minute tax preparation person these 3 FREE TaxCut tax prep software may save you and your procrastination tactics in the nick of time! You don’t even have to wait for it to get to you, it’s just 3 codes I send on to the winners on April 8, just in time! Hurry, hurry, April 15 is not far behind! 
The Rules
- This giveaway is all in good fun.
- There is no purchase necessary and it won’t improve your chances to win, but I’m always up for free $ if you’d like to send me some.
- If it works as planned, I’m happy to offer more giveaways in the future.
- The winners will be selected by random number generator.
- The winners will be chosen on April 8, 2008 @ 12pm Pacific Standard Time(PST).
- Anyone of any age can enter unless it is illegal in your area.
- I will ship the prizes anywhere in the world USPS delivers if need be.
- The winners will be contacted via email, SO LEAVE A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS IF YOU WANT TO BE CONTACTED! I promise I will NEVER use your email address for evil purposes. Just to contact you to tell you that you’ve won. You don’t even need to leave a real name if you don’t want, just a valid email address (and home address if you win). If the email address isn’t valid, I’ll use the random number generator to pick another name.
- All prizes are provided “as is”.
- If you want to host my next giveaway, I’m happy to consider your offer. Contact me.
- The odds of winning depend on how many people are involved. I can’t give you this info now, but I can assure you, it’s easier to win than the standard lottery.
- By getting in on this you allow MyInvestingBlog to republish what you write either on this blog or other spots.
- I am the judge and jury as to what is a “relevant” post. If you’re following the rules above, you’re most likely a valid post; but I reserve the right to delete your post if I feel it isn’t relevant to this blog. For example, if you write something like: “I really like Amazon, and I really really like their free gift certificates!” You’ll probably not get in. Please make it a valid post!
Popularity: 44% [?]
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37 Comments
March 25th, 2008 at 6:02 am
I already did my taxes but I’d love to win the gift card or EC credits.
Already got our federal return and right now it’s sitting in our ING account. It will eventually be used to help pay for renovations to the kitchen.
FFB’s last blog post..Best of Free From Broke So Far
March 25th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I’m a lazy procrastinator. Sign me up! I plan on building out my garage with the money.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I’m a Canadian citizen and my favorite investments outside the USA are Emerging Market mutual funds and Asian stock index funds.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:01 am
UK citizen and I have been partial to the new Indian ETF WisdomTree India Earnings Fund (EPI). Thanks for the game!
March 25th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I won’t be getting a refund. We owe $3,500.
Why you ask? I’m recently married and we made more money than expected last year with bonuses and job changes. I’m planning to fix our W4s for 2008.
Still, I’d rather owe than have given the Govt. a non-interest bearing loan. I don’t need forced savings. I save on my own.
Still sucks to pay that much on one day though.
PT’s last blog post..5 Crazy Tax Write-Offs
March 25th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I am already living within my budget so I do not have as much of a need for my tax refund so I will be reinvesting it to increase my investment income.
As soon as I get my tax refund, it will be going into my interest-bearing account where I will be able to access it as soon as I am ready to invest so I keep my money growing. I already did my taxes, got my state income tax refund already so should be getting my federal tax refund soon. And of course, there is the stimulus check as well so it will be a nice stockpile.
Hope this is worthy of the Amazon gift card.
Mark @ TheLocoMono’s last blog post..Shave Your Way To $13,602.81
March 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I’m in the UK and I mainly have tax free cash savings and tax free shares managed fund (tax free = ISAs) - am currently saving those towards then buying a house which would then be my main investment - but not easy given how expensive property prices are over here.
Zath’s last blog post..Jericho Season 2 Cancelled
March 25th, 2008 at 11:53 am
My favourite investment outside the US is FTSE All Share Tracker from Fidelity through a Stocks and Shares ISA. It has low fees, tax-advantaged status, no restrictions on withdrawals, and it’s a tracker. What more could anyone want?
plonkee’s last blog post..basic guide to Stocks and Shares ISA: conclusions
March 25th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I owe $1,100 this year. We had a couple changes in our employment, state residency, income, and neductions… I’ve changed the W-4, so hopefully I won’t owe so much next year.
Patrick’s last blog post..XM and Sirius Satellite Radio Merger Approved - But It’s Not a Done Deal
March 25th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Well, the tax return paid off our last debt in February! That was a big incentive to file early LOL As for the “economic stimulus” tax whatever-it-is, that one is going into a money market account for a big honkin’ emergency fund since my furnace is old enough to legally drink.
Now the burning question would be: Amazon gift card or EC creds?
Debt Free Revolution’s last blog post..Going Nowhere Fast with Minimum Payments
March 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Without my last W2, I’m not positive about the refund yet. But I think we’ll get one. It will mostly go towards the car debt. Depending on how much we get back, I might put some of it towards an expensive book I’ve been wanting (and I really want that $100 gift certificate, because that’d help too!!).
Nothing too exciting, but it’ll make us happy.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Fun prizes!
Ok, I signed up for your rss feed (why is the normal feed worth less than the email feed?).
My favourite investment outside the US is Canadian banks - they have a monopoly in Canada and charge ripoff fees so being an owner is a great thing!
Mike
p.s. You Americans can buy Canuck banks as well - they are on sale at the moment….
March 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Subscribed to your RSS feed by email already. Am not from the US so I’ll say my favorite investment outside the US is high-risk BRIC emerging market funds.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Thanks to all that have entered so far! Anyone that is already RSS’d is to my feed will be granted the same as the new people coming on! Sorry I didn’t add that in the post, adding now!
March 26th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I am having to pay 1300 this year in tax. I will have to fix my w4 for the next!
March 26th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I’m in the market for a new kitchen table, so I’ll be putting right back into the economy like Bush hopes.
Millionaire Money Habits’s last blog post..How to Save a Million Dollars
March 28th, 2008 at 5:58 am
We have already gotten our tax return back and I wrote all about my plan for it. We got a little over 12K back and are planning to use it to pay down our mortgage. Unlike MMH, I will not be making Bush’s hopes a reality
Here’s my post about it:
http://www.mommygetspaid.com/paying-down-the-mortgage/
LJ’s last blog post..Friends and Money
March 28th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Hank,
Wish I could say I will be getting a tax refund, but hubby made a couple big goofs and now it appears that we will owe around $1,800. I could really use TaxCut to see if we can get that number down lower. I will be subscribing to your e-mail feed. I’m also in the beginning stages of starting my blog which will debut April 1st and will have a write up for you on opening day. I’m just learning all the mechanics of this blog business and will get you on my blogroll as soon as I get that figured out.
Nancy’s last blog post..In the beginning
March 28th, 2008 at 7:55 am
We got our refund already - 1/2 of it went toward paying down our debt, then of the remaining 1/2 - 1/4 went to our vacation fund, 1/4 to our emergency acct, 1/4 to everyday savings, and 1/4 toward a shiny new patio set. Much better than the “old days” were we’d just waste the refund and then wonder where it went!!
March 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Right into my index funds!
Brian’s last blog post..The First Submission [update x2] and Consolidated 5 submissions!
March 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I already got the refund, and my husband and I both paid off the last little bit of our student loans.
With the stimulus payout, I am opening (another) savings account and using that to attempt to get a personal loan w/my bank to bump my credit score. Wish me luck!
March 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
All very good ideas for the refund! You’ve all been entered; as well as all you folks that have signed up to feeds! Looks like right now we’re looking at 1000+ entries so far! One week+ to go!
March 30th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
we owe about $1000 in taxes this year because we just got married last year. I wrote a post about it here:
http://baglady.dreamhosters.com/2008/03/09/plans-for-reducing-our-taxes/
thebaglady’s last blog post..The Business of Being Born
April 1st, 2008 at 4:39 am
I am not getting a return and I will be writing a check to the IRS for $9746.00. If you are wondering how and why on earth I allowed that to happen, check out my post at the following link.
http://thefinancialengineer.blogspot.com/2008/04/making-money-from-my-unpaid-irs-tax.html
Thanks for having the giveaway, Hank.
Kristin’s last blog post..Do we really want to bail out vandals?
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
My husband and I already received our state and federal returns. We just moved in to a new house, so that money is being used to hire a painter and to purchase paint. It worked out quite well.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Unfortunately we owe. We owe just a little over $300.
Will be subscribing via email. =)
Saph -Walk with Me’s last blog post..Plastic Bag Keeper
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 am
I do taxes for my whole family - my adults kids and I have intertwined finances — and am way behind in getting our complex tax returns finished. TurboTax gets me through it, but am starting to panic now that I realize April 15 is just around the corner. Will do extensions for everyone and then try to finish up fast. We expect sizeable refunds from the Calif. Franchise Tax Board because of its withholding policy when you sell real estate. Am keeping my fingers crossed about the Federal tax.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
We owe, but I won’t know how much until we get through a recharacterization of my IRA. Probably around $1,500 - $2,000.
April 6th, 2008 at 9:35 am
We plan to use the tax rebate toward paying down our vacation/rental condo - our final debt.
Kim’s last blog post..4/5 Expressions
April 6th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I will probably use it to sign up for several checking accounts that offer sign up rewards. I’ll keep the accounts active by direct depositing about $10 every month into each of them. Hopefully I can pull in about $400 after all the work. The rest I will let sit in the ING account.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I’m from Canada and I think a great investment is in the commodity market. PAL stocks were a good bet a while back and I think they will still be a good long term investment.
Reid’s last blog post..Earning Money with Proxies!
April 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Thanks to everyone for participating! The prizes have been handed out! This contest is now closed.
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