By Jeff Mullin, commentary

Money. We all want it, we all need it and none of us can get enough of it.

We try to tell ourselves money doesn’t really matter that much to us, but we’re not being honest.

It’s tax time, after all, with April 15 looming on the horizon like a date with a proctologist with extraordinarily large hands.

Speaking of taxes, Bankrate.com has come out with its annual list of the 10 craziest tax write-offs compiled from Certified Public Account-ants around the country.

Topping this year’s list is the marijuana dealer who wanted to write off his business expenses. The dealer was facing criminal charges and didn’t want to face a tax fraud rap as well. Oh well, I guess it was worth a try.

Internal Revenue Service, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t always prevail when it challenges off-beat deductions. There was the case of the topless dancer who got breast implants and wrote them off as a business deduction, claiming them as a capital asset. IRS challenged the deduction, but the dancer took the matter to tax court — and won. Hearing about IRS coming out on the short end is enough to warm the bosom of the average taxpayer.

Everything, it seems, is about money these days. If you are a parent, you are painfully aware of that fact. When they are younger, children see parents as loving, wise protectors and providers. When they reach their teen years, children suddenly see parents as ATMs with feet.

Earlier this week, the Agriculture Department estimated if you had a baby in 2007 you can expect to spend $204,060 raising the child. That includes food, clothing, housing and iPod but not the cost of college.

That also includes visits by the Tooth Fairy. When I was a kid, lost baby teeth were good for a nickel, a dime or, if old TF was feeling particularly generous, a quarter.

According to a 2006 survey of 150 mothers conducted by online toy store eBeanstalk.com, the Tooth Fairy is giving today’s children an average of $2.64. Heck, if I had gotten that much I would have pulled them out, rather than waiting for nature to take its course.

Money, of course, can’t buy happiness. Or can it?

California Institute of Technology tested the theory by studying how people perceived different types of wine, based on the cost of a bottle. Test subjects sampled a $90 wine marked with its real price and when it was marked $10. They also sampled a $5 wine marked up to $45.

MRIs of the test subjects indicated their brains showed they were happier drinking the wine at its higher price rather than the lower one. Remem-ber, the wine was the same, only the price was different.

In another study, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers told 82 volunteers they were going to test a new painkiller approved by Food and Drug Admini-stration. Half were told the drug was priced regularly, while half were told it had been discounted.

The pills actually were placebos consisting of no more than vitamin C, but 85 percent of the volunteers who thought they were taking the higher-priced pills said the drug worked well, as compared to 61 percent of those who thought they were taking the discounted drug.

So perhaps money can’t make us happy but can only make us think we are.

Actually, says the Bible, giving away money really will make us happy. Now scientists agree. Researchers at University of British Columbia and Harvard University found people who gave money to charities report being happier than those who didn’t.

To review, don’t try to make a boob out of the tax man; kids will cost you an arm, a leg and a tooth; perception of value is no indicator of actual value; and giving will make you happier than receiving.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I have a loose tooth I could cash in on.



Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle.