A new IRS provision will allow more taxpayers to deduct up to $300 in donations to qualifying charities this year. Following special tax law changes made earlier this year, cash donations of up to $300 made before Dec. 31, 2020, are now deductible when people file their taxes in 2021, the IRS says. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security […]
Business
Ventura County wants no part of SoCal coronavirus designation
Hoping to take more control of when businesses can reopen and locals can be free of state’s most recent stay-at-home order, leaders in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties want Gov. Gavin Newsom to create a new Central Coast region comprising the three counties that is separate from the enormous Southern California region. “The region we are part […]

Banking on holiday goodwill
Montecito Bank and Trust kicked off the holiday season on Nov. 23 with a special annual tradition and a new twist—a virtual Community Dividends celebration. Now in its 18th year, the bank’s giving program has granted a total of $18 million to nonprofit organizations in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. This year’s distribution was $1 million. In lieu of the […]
Oak Park district shaves off bond indebtedness
Oak Park Unified School District announced it took advantage of lower interest rates to reduce the district’s debt payments. Oak Park entered the municipal bond market Oct. 28 and worked with financial advisor Piper Sandler & Co. and bond underwriter Wells Fargo to replace more than $8,950,000 of old bonds from Measure C-6 and Measure R, which carried an average […]

AMERICAN FAMILY CARE OF AGOURA HILLS
MEET YOUR ACORN ADVERTISERSvetlana Kertanova is a seasoned leader and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience and several educational degrees she earned in Russia in the late 1990s/early2000s, as well as an executive MBA from UCLA in 2018. Now the CEO of American Family Care of Agoura Hills applies her knowledge to the field of healthcare.“AFC’s medical staff is equipped to provide […]

Treated wood, once boon to carpentry, now seen as environmental waste
COMMENTARY /// Eye on the EnvironmentTreated wood is common not only in railroad ties and telephone poles, but also in household construction such as fence posts, sill plates, landscape timbers, pilings, guardrails and decking. When rules concerning the disposal of treated wood expire at the end of December, the product could become much more expensive to discard. According to the website of the California Department […]