For the answer (which is quite interesting) click onto the blog Tax Girl.

When I was in basic training, the military decided to replace service numbers with Social Security numbers.I already knew that number, of course, because it had been my student ID number in college.

And so it went until the era of identity theft.

Bonus Question:  Where can an identity thief find a treasure trove of identities to steal, complete with authentic SSN’s; AND (this is great!) where the victims won’t complain?

Give up?  Oh, you knew!

Just look up the record of any estate filed with the Department of Court Records in Allegheny County or the Register of Wills elsewhere in PA.  Yes, they still require you to fill in the decedent’s SSN on official documents.  And not the last four, either.  The whole number. [Don't tell identity thieves.]

When will the United States run out of 9 digit SSN’s?  By my count, assuming they don’t start reusing them, any day now.

CLT

No, we are not talking about that lying rodent from Punxy.  We’re talking about our Governor, who is so inaccessible that he must be spending a lot of time walking on the Appalachian Trail.

So where does he show up?  That’s right.This is not a picture of the Governor, though.  At least I don’t think so.

Thanks, Virginia, for the great photo which appeared your blog That’s Church.

CLT

Excuse my impertinence.  I refuse to get all stirred up predicting who is going to win on Sunday night.  I noticed during dinner that ESPN was overanalyzing the situation, as normal.  Could the Giants get to Brady?  Was Brady intimidated by something or other? I forget what.  Then they ask everybody down to cab drivers and  Carmelite Nuns to predict the score.

Truth is, either team could win and who wins will probably have more to do with luck than who came to play. Sports analysts are good at dreaming up convincing reasons why somebody won and somebody else lost, but you never hear them tell you the truth, that there is a whole lot of luck involved when both teams are at the top of their games (pronounced, “on winning streaks”).

It can be good entertainment, even great entertainment.  But don’t take it all too seriously. The way a playoff series is arranged, one team will end with a winning streak of four or five games.  It happens every year.  No big deal.

CLT

Newt Gingrich has been taking some heat over suggesting that the United States plan to establish a permanent settlement on the Moon.  You would think he had suggested colonizing a couple of countries in the Middle East.

What is so crazy about planning a lunar colony?  It makes a lot more sense, in terms of pure logic, than the first race to the moon, begun 50 years ago.  That was a wild-eyed adventure if there ever was one.  Nobody had any idea how all of the scientific problems that lay in the way would ever be solved.  All we had was faith and that unique American optimism that sometimes borders on insanity. In the end, it took us less than a decade.

Compared to the scientific complexity of putting a man on the Moon, the Manhattan Project was a piece of cake.  But of course, these two great scientific achievements had one powerful thing in common.  A dangerous enemy who was trying to gain military supremacy.

Yes, if we had a credible enemy who was trying to establish a military base on the Moon, you can bet that the United States would be energized. But who can be sure that there isn’t such an enemy with such a plan? Like China.

Do you think the Chinese would tell us if they were working on a Moon mission?  They could do it, you know. Our best Universities, including CMU, graduate hundreds of native Chinese PhD’s in every high-tech field needed for such an endeavor.  Thanks to our immigration policies, almost all of them must return home.

But the Chinese probably don’t even need so many highly-trained scientists to do the job.  They also have highly-trained spies. Unlike 1961, most of the required technology is already in existence.  Much of it is installed on the international space station. So what are we waiting for?  Another Sputnik moment?

In one respect, the Moon will be the perfect colony.  There will be no natives to displace or exploit.  There will be no fragile environment to degrade. There will be just us, the intrepid American explorers.

Lets do it! Don’t worry about making it pay for itself. We’ll probably start discovering new things about the universe on the very first day.  And ten years out, we’ll all be telling ourselves how smart we were and how rich we’ve become.

This week on AVVO Blog, Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk is coming in at a respectable number 228.  However, at 227 there is a blog called Arbitrary and Capricious that went on hiatus on July 31, 2009 and hasn’t posted since.

Hrumpf!

CLT

Flippers haven’t been much in evidence lately, but keep an eye out for their handiwork, because they can play havoc with assessment values.

A few years ago, they bought a house in your neighborhood and spent a lot of time and money improving it.  Then they sold it for a much higher price.

I think flippers can be a great factor for injecting value into a neighborhood.  But the problem is that, after they are finished putting plenty of money and labor into a house, they put it on the market for a substantial increase in price.  Then the assessors are likely to call it a comp for your house.  Truth was, the property when they bought it a few years ago might have been more comparable.   So, what to do?

If the County is showing a property as a comp that is too high, check the building permits.  They are public record.  Unfortunately, a lot of people lie about how much they intend to spend, but you will get a chance to find out what they did to the property.  New bathroom, new kitchen, new roof, new furnace — sometimes it can be like building a new house.  By the same token, some sellers do work before selling their houses. The clue to that may be found in the listing.

Yes, it may take a little time to get the information.  But it could be worth it to knock out a high comp.

Don't write Santa. Email him!

As 2012 has just begun, and I have just passed the 800th post in this blog, a late New Year’s Resolution.

Less paper.  Lots less.

Actually, I’ve been working on this one for a while, but now is the time to press onward and upward.

I resolve not to send anything by mail that can be sent electronically.  Although the Rules call for service of pleadings by mail, most lawyers will accept service by email if you ask.  So I will ask. Forcefully, if necessary.

Replacing a paper communication with an electronic one has plenty of positives and no — yes, no — negatives.

You can write and send an email in a fraction of the time it takes to write a letter, print it, sign it,  address an envelope, print it, stuff paper in paper, apply postage and deliver the final product to the Post Office.  But the benefits do not stop there.

The message arrives at its destination in a nanosecond.

The reply often comes in minutes.

Virtually no space is required to store it.

Less effort is required to retrieve it from electronic storage.

I can also access it away from the office via the cloud.

So why are so many of us clinging to paper?  Primarily, it is because we are afraid to let go.  Of course there are times (few times) when there is no choice. Such a choice should be dictated by the needs and expectations of others.

Less paper means electronic books, too. Less storage here, a lot less.  I borrowed an ebook from the public library recently.  It returned itself, even though I forgot that it was due.

I just added “Chuck Newton Rides the Third Wave” to the blogroll. That blog has seen over 2,000 posts and is still going strong.  Chuck Newton is a minimalist. You wouldn’t catch him buying any unnecessary office supplies.  He says that all you really need to practice law is a laptop, a cell phone and a spare bedroom.  Everything else is candy for your ego.

Newton says that lawyers buy (or rent) things they don’t need because they worry about their image. That includes fancy offices. You pay big money to rent high class real estate and then spend more to pay the utilities and furnish it. They call it an investment, Newton says, but it is really a sink hole for money. At at the end of it all, your “investment” is worth zero.   Newton says that clients would rather get better service at lower fees.  And how do you lower fees?  Send fewer letters and more email.

CLT

This is the 800th Post on Pittsburgh Legal Backtalk.  Thanks for reading.

Joe Paterno’s testimony before the grand jury corroborated Mike McQueary’s testimony that he reported activity of a sexual nature and not just horseplay.  Paterno would have been an important prosecution witness in the trials of former PSU Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Senior Vice President Gary Schultz. These two defendants will assert that they were not informed of the full extent of what happened by McCreary.

While there is a transcript of Paterno’s testimony, because there was no opportunity to cross-examine in a grand jury proceeding, admission of the transcript would violate the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  So says ALM’s Legal Blogwatch.

CLT

The Allegheny County says that assessment numbers to be used in 2013 and comparable sales are now available on the County’s website, but only for City and Mt Oliver properties. Other areas will be posted in coming weeks.

To find values to be used in 2013, you must visit  ”Court Ordered Reassessment Values”. You can get there by going to the Allegheny County web site (Google it) and following the links. Be aware that the 2012 value and the new 2013 value are displayed at the bottom of the page and you may have to scroll down to see it.

If you read the notice in the middle of the page, you will find a link for corrections of errors in the building information, such as the number of rooms,  bathrooms and other such factors. This can be done without an informal hearing, although it may be wise to check for changes periodically.  This may result in a change (hopefully a reduction) to the reassessment, but don’t count on it.  File a formal appeal anyway.  It can be withdrawn if you decide that you are satisfied with the value by the time of the hearing.

However, to find other information, primarily things that didn’t or shouldn’t change, such as the building information, photo, floor plan  etc., it is necessary to click on a link on the middle of the Court Ordered Reassessment page, which takes you to your previously-existing assessment page.

Complicated?  Yes.  Difficult to navigate?  Initially, yes. But if you have time and patience, you can probably work through it. Unfortunately, a spot check of random properties indicates there are still problems with some of the information. Some web pages are missing information or have not been fully updated.  The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports that the County says the problems are temporary and will soon be fixed.

CLT

This morning the County downloaded City and Mt. Oliver values and comps on the new website entitled “Court Ordered Reassessment Values.”  Check it out.

CLT