Month: February 2025

Ann Arbor in 1958 was the perfect place for a kid and a bike.  I think my life hit its peak when I had a Schwinn and two dollars in my pocket on a nice summer day in Ann Arbor.  I would climb out of bed and put on the uniform.  A white tee shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes.  In the fifties, we rolled up the cuffs on the jeans.  The right cuff was rolled up a little higher so that it would not get caught in the bicycle chain.      

Off to enjoy the world.  I coasted three blocks down Miner Street to Miller Ave.  Turned left on Miller and headed to my first stop at Campbell’s Bakery.  Campbell’s was on North Main, one store from the corner of Main and Miller Ave.  Campbell and Sons opened in 1948 and offered a host of American baked goods.  Every morning they had all of the classics: bismarks, cream puffs, eclairs, donuts, Boston creams and long johns.  They had a variety of cookies, cakes and baked breads. My favorite was the chocolate covered long john.  This was a gigantic pastry stuffed with custard and coated with chocolate icing.  The consistency and quality of the baked goods kept us coming back for years.

The next stop was Riders Hobby Shop.  Riders was a block and a half west of Main Street on Liberty Street.  It had everything that an eleven year old ever wanted.  Lionel trains, models of every size and description, gas powered model airplanes, BB guns, bicycles, a slew of Wham-O products, Frisbees, sling shots, boomerangs, and army men. I could easily spend an hour just looking at all of the great stuff. 

When I was ten, I bought a boomerang from Riders.  A fine, wood Wham-O.  I had watched the adds on TV and was very impressed that you could throw one of these things and it would come right back to you.  I went to a big field by Mack School and fired that sucker with all my might.  The boomerang sailed over the weeds toward the end of the field and disappeared.  I waited for the return.  A few minutes, a half hour, an hour.  How long can it take for the boomerang to work its magic?  None of the instructions gave a timeline.  For the rest of the summer, when I was outdoors, I looked for the returning boomerang.  To this day, sixty eight years later, it still has not returned.  When I am sitting on my patio smoking a cigar, I scan the sky looking for the boomerang.  It is a mystery how the weapon invented by the Australian Native People can find its owner but it does.  I know that someday it will come hurtling back to me and I want to be ready.  These devices can drop a full sized kangaroo.  I need to see it coming before it drops me.

During “Bargain Days”, Riders would get fifteen or twenty beater bikes and sell them for a dollar apiece.  Thirty kids would line up at five in the morning and dash to get their one dollar special as soon as the doors were open.  I tried but never got one.  I think most of the guys who succeeded ended up on the offensive or defensive lines at Michigan.             

Okay, time for a snack.  We had two great “Dime Stores” downtown.  There was a Woolworths and a Kresges.  Both conveniently located on Main Street.  The great thing about the Dime Stores was that you could actually afford to buy a lot of the cool stuff that you saw.  I bought a new kite every March, balsam wood airplanes, glass piggy banks, a glass liberty bell bank, and a plastic reindeer that pooped jelly beans when you pulled its tail.  I still have that very cool item and it still works.  Both stores had a candy and nut counter.  At Kresges, for less than fifty cents, I could get a quarter pound of whole cashews.  These beauties were salted and heated in a special glass oven and display case.  I bought a little white bag of hot cashews and headed to the soda fountain for a cherry coke.  In 1958, the only bottled coke you could buy was coke.  There was no diet coke or flavored cokes.  Just coke.  So it was a special treat to go to the soda fountain and enjoy a fountain coke with cherry syrup.  Talk about living large!  Hot cashews and a cherry coke was as good as it could possibly get. 

Well, I still had a lot of time to kill.  Maybe I’ll ride out to Michigan Stadium to see if there was a baseball game going on.  I know.  That sounds strange.  A baseball game in the big house?  In the fifties and sixties, the gates to Michigan Stadium were never locked.  Anyone could stroll in at any time.  A lot of high school and college athletes used it as a training facility.  They would run the steps.  In essence, they would start at the top of section one and run down ninety two rows of seating, traverse to section two and run up ninety two rows of seating.  The star athletes would continue through all forty four rows of seats.  A lot of my friends organized baseball games in the stadium.  We brought our balls, bats and gloves and set up a diamond in the northwest corner of the field.  We used shirts for bases.  We chose teams and played a nine inning game.  Left field was obviously a short fence.  We all pretended to be Al Kaline or Rocky Colavito when we popped one into the left field seats.  I played baseball in the stadium at least ten times.  I doubt that the groundskeepers wanted us there but we were never tossed out.  Definitely a little different than the high security days of the 2020’s.

Unfortunately, no one was playing baseball today. I decided to take First Street home and stop for a chocolate malt at Washtenaw Dairy.  The Dairy is on the corner of First and Madison.  It opened in 1938 and was one of approximately fifteen neighborhood dairies in the city.  In 1958, they made, perhaps, the best handmade malt in the world.  In 2025, the “Dairy” is still the same.  Talk about classic.  The counter and soda bar may have changed a little but they still make the same, world class, chocolate malt.  I can’t go to Campbells or Kresges or Riders but I can still go to the Dairy. 

In fact, I frequently am asked to join my friends at the Dairy for a cup of coffee and a Dairy donut in the morning.  Another long standing institution in Ann Arbor is Muehlig’s Funeral Home.  Many of my friends are in their 70’s or 80’s and they spend a lot of mornings at the Dairy.  When they ask me to join them for coffee and donuts they don’t say “let’s meet at Washtenaw Dairy” they use an alternative name and ask me to “meet them at Meuhlig’s Waiting Room”.

I may have revisionist memory but I don’t believe my life has ever been better than it was when I rode my Schwinn into Downtown Ann Arbor.

In 2017, Donald Trump proclaimed that, with the changes he proposed to the tax system, most Americans would be able to file their 1040’s on the back of a postcard.  I decided that I would, in fact, file my 2017 return on the back of a postcard. 

The key element of the simplification was the result of substantially raising the standard deduction to the point where most Americans would no longer have to itemize their deductions.  For nearly everyone, the standard deduction was a lot larger than their itemized deductions.  In fact, for the 2017 tax year, nearly 90% of all federal returns used the standard deduction. 

I was in the 90%.  This did greatly reduce my record keeping.  For example, I no longer needed to track all of the charitable contributions in a complex spreadsheet.  Some were straight forward. $200 to the Society for Preservation and Promotion of Barber Shop Quartet Music.  Others were more difficult to determine. What percentage of the 56 boxes of Girl Scout cookies can I deduct?  How much of my season tickets to the University of Michigan Fencing Team program is deductible?  What about my tickets to my grandson’s Rollins College Choir concert? 

Perhaps the best example of complexity for itemizing deductions is tracking the possibility of deducting medical expenses.  I could deduct all of my healthcare costs that exceeded 7.5% of my Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).  What in the world is Adjusted Gross Income?  It is a number that appears on line 11 of my federal tax return after I have entered all of my revenue information for the tax year.  So I can’t know what this number is until I am half finished with my tax return.  As a result, I need to track at least three different Medicare premiums for my wife, three different Medicare premiums for me, all of our doctor charges, all of our prescriptions, and all of our over the counter drug charges.  I collected this data for an entire year aggregating hundreds of transactions. Sometimes I blew away the 7.5% and got a nice deduction.  Other years it was a total waste of time.  Because of pure volume and because I never knew when I could have a very expensive medical event, I tracked all of this information as it occurred each month. I believe that all of the legislation for the Medical Deduction was designed to ensure that very few people would actually go to the trouble required to claim it.

The itemized deduction malaise ended in 2017.  All I needed to focus on was my revenue.  The lion’s share of this is reported to me on thirty different tax reports that I receive from my investment managers and Social Security. 

So I licensed Turbo Tax, input all of the tax documents, and answered all of the weird questions.  “Did you invest in any crypto currencies?”   “Are you hording precious metals?”  “Did you profit from any sports or concert ticket sales?”  “What is your shoe size?  What is your spouse’s shoe size?”  “Did you have passive income?  Usually this is generated while you are binge watching streaming services from your recliner.”  “Did you also have aggressive income?”

After feeding all of the required revenue information into Turbo Tax, the software pumped out a nice, 18 page tax form.  It turns out that I could not fit the filing on a single postcard.  So I reworked the margins with my word processing software and created 87 sequential postcards for the entire return.  Even so, I had to use oversized cards.  I shopped for peaceful nature scenes hoping that they would have a calming effect on the highly stressed IRS workers.  

I put all of the cards in a certified mail package and sent it to the IRS.  Mission accomplished, I completed my form on the back of postcards.

For many years, Turbo Tax Technology has been very impressive and very helpful.   However, in 2025 we can augment Turbo Tax with an Artificial Intelligence tool.  My preferred AI tool is CHUCK.  Acme Technologies developed a very user friendly product that can access all of the digital information in the world and replicate the rationalization processes of the human mind. It responds to most inquiries in a few seconds. They dubbed it “Channeling Hyper Utilization of Computer Knowledge or CHUCK”.

So I asked one simple question.  “CHUCK, do you have any recommendations for minimizing the amount of federal income tax I will have to pay for tax year 2024?”  In eight seconds, CHUCK analyzed all of the digital data in the world and returned the following response.

“Michael Jay, (somehow CHUCK knows my favorite nickname) I have a few ideas:”

You need to claim Harlin Sanders as a dependent.  Harlin is the fried chicken chef at the Jacksonville Beach Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.  Based on the volumes of your purchases in 2024 you provided more than half of Mr. Sanders support for the entire year.

All of the money you spent on golf should be classified as a Casualty Loss.  All of your greens fees, the new set of TaylorMades you purchased, the thirty four dozen Titleist golf balls should all be included in the loss.  Your club membership and golf lessons should also be added to the amount of loss.  A bit aggressive, but you should also include in the tally, travel to and from all of your golf outings.  A quick review of emails circulated by your playing partners and your golf instructor all say that your golf game is an unmitigated disaster.  Hence the deductible Casualty Loss.

You need to deduct losses for a small startup business on Schedule C.  You sold eight World Class Barbecue Cookbooks in 2023 aggregating royalty income of $24 dollars.  You are in the Barbecue Business.  Research and development for this promising venture include developing two barbecue sauces and a raft of new recipes to accommodate high technology barbecuing tools (especially pellet smokers).  Valid expenses for the enterprise include the two Traeger Pellet smokers you purchased, the cost of all the barbecue feasts you prepared in 2024, all of the meals you consumed at barbecue restaurants, mileage to and from the restaurants, 37 bags of pellets and all of the cooking paraphernalia you acquired.  It is very common for brilliant startups to be in a loss position the first few years.  Notwithstanding, Michael Jay’s Barbecue Company is a legitimate business.

You nearly qualified for a child care credit as the result of listening to distraught Ohio State fans bemoan their loss to Michigan.  You did not qualify because child care was only required for the final month of 2024.  Almost certainly you will be entitled to the child care credit in 2025 after listening to the infantile fans complain for, at least, another eleven months.

For your convenience, I am attaching spreadsheets that fully document all of the information you need to support all three of the above claims. One thousand fifteen transactions have been documented including transportation charges at the allowed IRS mileage rate, where appropriate.

Hope you find this helpful, CHUCK.

Wow!  That was a lot of work in eight seconds.  It appears that Artificial Intelligence saved me a little more than $11,000 in federal taxes. 

Should we love or fear AI?  I am loving it today!  The best job of tax research I have ever experienced and it didn’t cost me $3,000 in accounting fees.  When the three of us celebrate the tax savings at the Chop House, my wife and I won’t even have to pay for CHUCK’s dinner. 

Isn’t technology wonderful!                

My wife and I grew up in Ann Arbor Michigan.  We know from personal experience that it is a wondrous and unusual place to live.   In the spring, summer, and fall, Ann Arbor can feel like Camelot.  In winter, which may run from October 15 through April 15, it often feels like Siberia.

So, as much as we love Ann Arbor, we moved to Florida in 1974.  For 30 years, however, we return to Ann Arbor every fall for the entire University of Michigan football season.  We enjoy spectacular fall weather, cruising the local farms and apple orchards, tailgating, football, tailgating, and tailgating.  Mostly, we enjoy hanging out with great friends from college, high school and even grade school. 

One aspect of Ann Arbor is different than any place I have ever been in North America.  Driving in Ann Arbor is a dangerous and totally unique experience. 

Since the 1950s, the City Road Commission has timed major road construction projects to block one or more of the principal routes to Michigan’s Football Stadium.  This cannot be accidental.  It is a source of pride for the brilliant city engineers.  “You know that bike lane rework we set up on Stadium Boulevard?  It backed up the Notre Dame traffic for three and a half hours.  18 more minutes and we would have had the record!  Yeah, we nearly eclipsed the exit time for the 1956 Ohio State blizzard!  Boy, it was close.”  Okay, game day in Ann Arbor is unique and only happens seven or eight times a year.  It is very predictable, however.   Since 1975, the city’s population doubles for twelve hours at every home game.  Equally predictable, in all of those 48 years, the road commission has closed one or several routes to the stadium with some sort of construction project.

One of the first things I do when we arrive from Florida is cruise the downtown and campus streets.  I want to know where the construction is and plan alternative routes so I don’t spend hours getting from point A to point B.  I know all of the alternative routes in Washtenaw County.  I rode every street in Ann Arbor on my bike in fourth grade and I drove a moving van around the city to pay for my college education.

On the recon drive I discovered a totally unique traffic pattern.  This could only happen in Ann Arbor.  I turned from Main Street on to Madison to transition from downtown to the Michigan campus.  After several blocks I reached a stop sign at the intersection of Madison and 5^th Avenue.  Madison, the street I am on, becomes a one way street coming toward me so I have to turn.  5^th Ave is a one way street as well coming from my left.  The only option, therefore, is to turn right on 5^th Ave.  The brilliant city road commission has closed down and barricaded 5^th Ave to my right.  The only alternative was to make an illegal u turn and head back the opposite direction on Madison.  I understand the need for road construction. I grew up in Ann Arbor.  However, there were no “detour” signs, no “road closed ahead” signs, and no alternative route information.  I was really happy that I wasn’t driving my moving van with the 40 foot trailer at this point.  The citizens and particularly, the students in Ann Arbor are clever and enterprising.  As I was marveling at Road Commission’s work, a young man got out of a car parked next to me and tapped on my window.  He said:  “ Hey Mister, can you help me out?  I got to this intersection four days ago.  I don’t know when they are going to finish this construction and let me make this right turn.  I sure could use a fiver so that I can get a Blimpy burger from Crazy Jim’s.  What do you think?”  I responded that creativity and moxy on this scale was worth more than that and gave him a ten.                

An irony of the Road Commission’s fixation on construction near the stadium is the incredible disrepair of many remaining streets.  Ann Arbor has always been pot hole challenged.  Although conditions have improved in recent years, a lot of the potholes are bad.  Potential axle breakers.  Some are big enough to eat small cars.  I passed one on Traver Road that had two people rock climbing out of it.  So while you are negotiating all of the other traffic challenges in Ann Arbor you constantly have to be evaluating the danger threat of the next hundred feet of potholes.         

At this point, we know that we have to be exceptionally diligent driving around this great midwest city.  Random and illogical construction coupled with sporadic, long sections of potholes requires critical focus.

These are not all of the challenges, however.  A great aspect of Ann Arbor is their focus on liberal and environmental causes.  The admirable support for these causes creeps into the transportation grid.  The city is exceptionally bicycle and pedestrian friendly.  Four lane streets were redesigned to two lane streets to accommodate world class bicycle lanes.  Amazingly, a few streets have been redesigned to accommodate bicycle lanes by reducing the automobile channel to a single lane.  These are not one way streets.  I found myself cruising down First Street in a single lane and encountering an eighteen wheel Peterbilt heading directly at me.  It was pretty clear who was going to yield the right of way.  I waved at Bubba, who was driving the truck, and backed up 200 feet to the nearest driveway.

Pedestrian rights trump automobile rights.  There are many well marked pedestrian crossing areas.  If pedestrians are present cars must yield the right of way.  On a temporary or permanent basis the city will quickly change traffic patterns to accommodate non motorist activities.  For example, many of the downtown streets are closed in the evening and on weekends to allow outdoor dining.  In fact, the city has formalized a “Healthy Streets” initiative to slow traffic in residential areas.  The initiative reconfigures the usage of various residential streets to facilitate bicycle and pedestrian traffic. 

New rules and new driving patterns.  Much more complicated than a 25 mile an hour speed limit sign.  Is my car allowed on this street?  What are the “Healthy Street” speed limits and driving rules?  Are these people really allowed to close the street for a touch football game?  Oh crap, I didn’t see that huge pothole!  Hope I didn’t crack an axle.   

Are these all of the challenges to driving in Ann Arbor Michigan?  No.  The biggest challenge is that the city has an inordinately large percentage of terrible drivers.  I know this sounds like the typical, self aggrandizing, “I can drive better than everybody else” comment.  But it is true and you better be ready for it if you are motoring around the city.  For whatever reason, a lot of people operating vehicles have not learned the basic lessons of driver’s education.  I am a defensive driver and have earned the highest safe driver rating from my insurance company over the last twenty years.  Normally, I expect hazards to emerge from the right, left, front and rear while I drive.  In Ann Arbor, I expect things to come at me straight out of the sky.  I am hyper vigilant.  The general problem is that a higher than usual number of drivers just go wherever they want with no regard for anything else.  Crossing three lanes of traffic to make a right turn without looking happens all of the time.  Traffic lights often seem to be nothing more than a recommendation.  No left turn signs, no turn on red signs, are meaningless.  Turn signals, if used at all, are random and should not be taken as indication of which way the vehicle will be directed.  Aggressive driving, that you may encounter in Atlanta or Tampa, is not the problem.  Rather, you have to assume that some of your highway companions are simply going to drive wherever they want without regard to anyone else on the road or any of the posted traffic signage.              

It always takes me a few days to gear up my driving skills for our autumnal visit to Michigan.  Construction, potholes, bikes and pedestrians, strange temporary driving regulations, and non compus mentis drivers make this a truly unique driving experience.  Last week we were in a grocery store on Maple and Dexter and I asked the check-out professional how long it would take to drive downtown on Dexter Ave.  She replied, “I don’t know, no one has ever made it.”