Americans give billions of dollars per year to charities.  In fact, charitable deductions in 2002 totaled over $136 billion.  According to the IRS Statistics of Income Bulletin (winter 2003-04), here are the average breakdown of claimed deductions for charitable contributions on 2002 tax returns:

• Taxpayers with Adjusted Gross Income between $15,000 to $30,000 averaged charitable contributions of $1,890.
• Taxpayers with AGI between $30,000 and $50,000 averaged $2,006 in charitable contributions.
• Taxpayers with AGI between $50,000 and $100,000 averaged $2,530 in charitable contributions.
• Taxpayers with AGI between $100,000 and $200,000 averaged $3,875 in charitable contributions.
• Taxpayers with AGI over $200,000 averaged $17,354 in charitable contributions.

• Average company juggles 37 lawsuits I don't know how I missed this one, but I'm glad I finally ran across it:  the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. (whose company slogan is "When you think litigation insight, think Fulbright), released their second annual Litigation Trends Survey last October.  It is a fascinating, 32-page......
• Financial Statements and Fund-ability Disraeli once said that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." In business, some of the "statistics" that can tell such damning lies are the numbers found on company  balance sheets and income statements. Too often, the reality is not accurately reflected in the numbers. Accounting......

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