Preparing for the new golf and tax season, and more Oscar fun
March 4, 2011
Cape Region golfers are finally in a position to finish and file their Federal income tax returns, especially for those seeking a refund of hard-earned cash now held by our friends at the Internal Revenue Service.
Thanks to Congress and the Administration’s extended dilly-dallying last fall over whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, the IRS needed extra time to make computer programming changes, mainly for the more complex Form 1040 returns.
There wasn’t much point in working on these filings until the Treasury Department was ready for them, by the end of February. This delay had a particular impact upon the taxpayers who itemize a variety of deductions, such as charitable donations.
And that’s where golf comes into the picture.
I recently received my first invitation of 2011 to a well-deserving charity golf tournament, from the good folks at the Children’s Beach House.
This year’s CBH Golf Classic will be held May 26, 2011 at The Peninsula on Indian River Bay near Millsboro. Ellison Carey of Merrill Lynch in Dover is the lead sponsor, but several additional sponsorship opportunities are available for the 2-ball, best of 4 shamble format event.
These sponsorships, with various amenities attached, range from $500 at the Bronze level, all the way to the Diamond/Naming Sponsor level, at $10,000.
If you’d just like to play in the tournament instead, a single golfer entry fee is $175, and foursomes can be arranged. For those interested in simply enjoying the tournament’s Poolside BBQ Buffet after the round, that’s a mere $50.
As you can imagine, the folks at the Children’s Beach House would be perfectly fine with accepting all or a portion of your tax refund from last year, as the source of funds for your tax-deductible contribution toward their 2011 golf tournament. See how easy that is?
To register for the tournament, call the CBH at 302-655-4288, or go to their website at www.cbhinc.org.
For those Cape Region charitable organizations still planning their golf tournaments for this year, this column will be happy to run the announcements for the events, as we’ve done in the past. Just send an email with all the particulars in plenty of time for the tournament’s sign-up deadline, and we’ll work it into the columns as best we can.
More Oscar Fun
In a recent column I discussed the Oscar-nominated movie “The King’s Speech,” starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter, in connection with a review of a collection of P.G. Wodehouse’s golf stories.
I have since learned there is a far more direct connection to golf for this year’s Best Picture award winner, which also won Best Director, Best Actor for Firth, and Best Original Screenplay.
In a Feb. 28 piece in The Telegraph newspaper of London, England, Show Business Editor Anita Singh wrote about how a round of golf led to the movie being made. As she described it, a British theatrical agent named Joan Lane read the script, with a view toward making it into a play.
After a keen lack of interest expressed by various stage producers, she then arranged for a dramatic reading of the script at a London theater. Lane’s husband plays golf with Richard Hooper, and Meredith Hooper joined her husband at the reading as among the invited guests. Mrs. Hooper loved it, and told her son, Director Tom Hooper, that he should make the film.
As the Oscar-winning director said at the Oscar ceremony, “The moral of the story is: listen to your mother.” Even more important, you just never know how the connections you make while playing golf will pan out. In this case, those of us who are big fans of “The King’s Speech” would certainly agree.