1. Define the decision
- What choice must be made?
- What is the real deadline?
- Which option disappears if you wait?
- Who else has authority or will carry the result?
Financial calculators
Useful math, without pretending the math is the whole decision.
Calculators are useful for exploring a question, not for disguising uncertainty. These tools provide estimates and starting points; planning, tax, investment and legal conclusions require the facts behind the inputs.
Property-sale basis organizer
Selling a home—do you have the records needed to calculate the tax?
Check acquisition, improvement, occupancy, depreciation and sale-record readiness without entering dollar amounts or receiving a public tax answer.
Working process
Useful tools stay attached to the decision.
Calculators are helpful for testing assumptions quickly. They are less helpful when a clean number is mistaken for a complete answer.
Future value
Loan payment
Retirement accumulation
More questions worth calculating
Automobile, cash flow, college, credit, home, insurance, paycheck, retirement, savings and taxes.
- Lease or buy an automobile?
- Loan versus dealer financing
- Accelerated loan payoff
- How much vehicle can I afford?
- Inflation and purchasing power
- Household cash-flow review
- College savings targets
- Debt payoff comparison
- Mortgage payment and affordability
- Rent versus buy
- Life-insurance need estimate
- Paycheck withholding scenarios
- Retirement savings target
- Required savings rate
- Investment growth
- Tax-equivalent yield
The calculators above are deliberately simple. More specialized tools belong here only when their assumptions can be explained clearly.
Need the record before the calculation? The Tax & Public Records Desk collects the federal, state and county tools used to check entities, exempt organizations, recorded documents, parcels, assessments, tax bills and maps.
Tax notice helper
Look up an IRS CP number, IRS letter or California FTB code.
Get a private, browser-based orientation to common IRS notices, FTB document locator numbers and California Notice of Tax Return Change paragraph codes—without uploading a tax document.
Professional reference desk
- IRS Tax Pro account — IRS access for tax professionals
- California MyFTB — state tax account access
- IRS frivolous tax positions — the specific historical notice in my reference list; check newer guidance for current matters
- WebCE — continuing education
- CPA Academy — professional education
- Butte County court portal — public court records
- Butte County Clerk Recorder — official county records
Ungated decision-readiness checklist
Bring the question into focus before you give anyone your email address.
You can use this checklist privately. It does not submit, store or transmit your answers.
2. Gather the evidence
- Current statements, tax returns and contracts
- Debt terms, property records and insurance
- Income, spending and cash-flow history
- Plan documents, benefit elections and notices
3. State the assumptions
- Values, rates, growth, inflation and timing
- Tax treatment and transaction costs
- What is known, estimated or still missing
- What would make the answer change
4. Decide what good means
- Cash flow and liquidity
- Risk, flexibility and reversibility
- Tax cost and administrative burden
- Family, business and community obligations
When the file is ready, the next step can stay small.
Send the general decision, deadline and document list. Do not send account numbers, Social Security numbers, passwords or sensitive records through ordinary email.