Clarium's strategy is to take advantage of supposed distortions in the market caused by government intervention. But the New York State Common Retirement Fund has intervened more directly in Thiel's fund, investing $8 million over the course of three months last spring — just in time for Clarium's holdings to crater from $7 billion to $2 billion. The market meltdown didn't help, but Clarium's stated strategy should have thrived in last year's environment, given the Bush administration's repeated attempts to prop up Wall Street. But perhaps it's a sneaky stratagem to bankrupt the government!

While mismanaging public money, Thiel has also made sure he won't be refilling the state till anytime soon. Thiel is actually far less rich than people think. (A Clarium insider tells us, for example, that there's no way he's a billionaire, as Forbes has reported.) His single best-performing investment is not Clarium, but rather his personal 5 percent stake in Facebook, which he purchased for $500,000 and is now conservatively worth $100 million. Sources at Facebook and Clarium confirm that Thiel holds his Facebook shares through a Roth IRA, which allows tax-free withdrawals on his retirement. He'll have paid at most $175,000 in taxes on that fortune. Getting the government out of one's pocketbook — it's every libertarian's dream!

And perfectly legal. Thiel believes neither death nor taxes are inevitable. (When he's not hacking the IRS code, he also funds longevity research.) The only downside? He might be too clever by half. When word gets to Washington of his tax maneuver, populist-rage-filled Congressmen may well call for an end to the Roth exemption. The taxman cometh.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

It's a brilliant riposte to McCain's tax-cuts-for-everyone strategy. And it's delightfully cynical. Since 90 percent of all startups fail, they don't generate any capital gains worth taxing. For those companies which do manage to go public, it means more money for the entrepreneurs, and less for public shareholders, who will still have to pay taxes if they buy and sell company shares at a profit. It's a pro-Jerry Yang, anti-Carl Icahn move. Valley entrepreneurs, already predisposed to like Obama for reasons they can't articulate, can now safely back him without getting in trouble with board members.

It cites a case pending in New York that would close the loophole, and garner the state $50 million in possible revenue. Instead, Pennsylvania is giving the book-business behemoth — or its customers, rather — a $1,750,000 tax break. And here I wondered how Carnegie Mellon was able to convince Bezos to fly to Pittsburgh for a commencement address.

Thanks to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, that means Texas can collect sales tax. It's unclear how much more Amazon.com customers will have to pay, but in New York, Comptroller Susan Combs says the state would have picked up $541 million from Amazon in 2006 if it collected sales tax on orders shipped to New York residents. (Photo by Robert Scoble)

This comment thread over on Gawker is useful and so is this Wired column. Lifehacker has more tips, including this important one: If you haven't finished your taxes by now, just file an extension. Most of the rest of the advice amounts to "keep records," which is a bit late now. Here's what my dad, self-employed for 20+ years had to say:

If you are really a freelancer, then you are self-employed and you don't use Form 8829. Instead all your expenses (and income) show up on Schedule C. Sweet!

How to tell: if you receive a W-2 then you are an employee. If you receive a 1099-MISC then you are self-employed. (If you get nothing then your client is a bozo and you are self-employed.)

Like many of the responders said, get really creative with your expenses. Not illegal, just... creative. Keep track of EVERY expense in a diary or DayTimer (nothing keeps IRS at bay like contemporary written records). Keep track of business mileage ($.405 per mile or something).

Don't depreciate. Computers, books, software, can all be expensed in the first year (up to $19k or some such limit).

File fed and state quarterly payments.

You can lose money (have much more expenses than income) for a while. 2 out of 5 years, say. Eventually you'd better make some money. But those first few years, yowza, you can deduct all those cool computers and phones you use to write your columns.

Hope this helps...

The IRS has stepped up efforts to crack down on unpaid payroll taxes in recent years. This form of fraud hurts both employees, who may be on the hook for monies withheld from their paychecks but never sent to the government, as well as taxpayers. The IRS can press charges against not just the company but top officials as well; the corporate veil, a legal concept which protects officers and directors from the actions of a corporation, does not apply here, I'm told.

That likely explains why Red Herring reported last year that half its board members had quit. David Chao, the cofounder of VC firm Doll Capital Management, still serves on the board, according to his online biography. Is his reputation worth a continued association with the Herring? Vieux can be charming and persuasive. Perhaps he kept Chao and other board members in the dark.

If the IRS investigation concludes that the Herring didn't pay its taxes, its directors have an unpleasant choice: Confess to complicity in the fraud, or admit that they were among the many Vieux has duped. Embarrassing as it would be, I'd suggest they go with the latter. They'd have plenty of company.

Tennessee has no state income tax on wages, while California's levy tops out at 9.3 percent. To minimize his tax bill, Gore has every interest in minimizing the appearance that he's spending a lot of time in California. I'm sure that we'll be hearing lots of convenient reports about Gore videconferencing his way through weekly partner meetings. (Photo by Sarah A. Friedman/Fortune)