Tax penalty for the Mac faithful?

The advice from my accountant is the same at the end of each year. "Well Daniel," he says, "I'm not telling you to spend money. But if you have a big purchase coming up in the next month you should make it before the end of the year."

All I can do is shake my head and say, "I probably do have a big purchase coming up in the next month---after all, it's MacWorld---but I don't know what it will be and I can't buy it now."

A couple of years ago I bought a family iMac right before the end of the year. I left it in the box and headed to MacWorld. I felt pretty safe because the iMac line had just been refreshed but you can never be too careful. Sure enough, that was the year that Jobs announced the new Intel iMac.

I was torn. Should I pay the restocking fee and get an Intel Mac or stay with the one we had.

The kids cried. They didn't want the new Intel box. It couldn't run Classic and a lot of their favorite games and activities were Classic. Kim figured we should just open this one. As always she was right.

This year in a way it's even worse. Apple didn't wait until MacWorld to reveal the top of the line upgrades. It was too late for the tax man and Jobs hasn't even taken the stage yet. We've seen this way too much in recent shows. Instead of the "one more thing" being announced at the end of Jobs' keynote, it's now announced quietly a week or so before.

So my accountant looks at it as something that can't go on last year's taxes. Then again, he's a PC user. He doesn't understand that Mac users tend to be ahead of the curve -- soon I'll have my first big deduction for my 2008 taxes.