Due to the catastrophes from the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita most of us in South LA were given a reprieve from filing our 2005 Personal Income Tax Returns until this October.

Wednesday, I met with my CPA to go over my 2005 Federal and State Income Tax Returns. Until I was attacked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers I had, thankfully, never had a major casualty loss. Having lost my house and all my possessions in the flooding following Katrina, I have a MAJOR casualty loss. The Feds provided us with some decent Personal Income Tax options in the effort to regain some of losses.

One of the more onerous features of the Stelly Nightmare was the loss of our itemized deductions on our State Personal Income Taxes. You guessed it. Casualty losses are one of those deductions that we lost. As a result, instead of getting money back from the state, those of us who continue to work for a living get zero break from the state for our losses.

Apparently, forgotten by our leges during the recent special and regular sessions was the impact of the Stelly Nightmare on our casualty losses. Had we gotten a break on our income taxes, we might have been able to pay for the additional premium on our homeowners’ insurance.

Government in LA is a government for the government. The citizens, unless they work directly for government have been forgotten.

It’s not too late for the leges to correct their failure. Legislation can be passed, retroactively, to apply to the casualty losses of 2005. Additionally, prospectively, some protection should be provided for such losses on future catastrophes whether natural or government-aided natural disasters.

C.B.