Basis

Eventually, common sense has to prevail in baseball's postseason. The three-of-five Division Series inevitably will be expanded to four-of-seven, at which time October will no longer be able to contain the three-tiered playoff format. Something has got to give.That something should be the length of the regular season, which should be reduced slightly -- say, back to the pre-expansion era total of 154 -- to absorb the extra playoff games and allow the postseason to begin in the final week of September.

Members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants are answering readers' tax questions through April 15. See below for how to submit a question.I bought Marriott stock some years ago, and since then it has split and then spun off a bunch of new companies. I would like to sell the Marriott stock, but have no idea how to figure out what its basis is after all these spinoffs. What do I do?First, the basis of the original purchase cost of the Marriott stock is split in half for each share due to the 2-for-1 split.

Although the phone calls have slowed from a tidal wave to a trickle, lenders, county and state officials are still sorting out the nuances as thousands of Marylanders elected to pay their property taxes on a semiannual basis.On Thursday, Gov. Parris N. Glendening signed into law legislation that flipped the way homeowners pay their property taxes, making semiannual the standard and annual payment an option, starting with the tax year that begins July 1, 2000.The idea was to lower closing costs in Maryland, which are among the highest in the nation.

Mortgage delinquencies nationwide continued to decline in the third quarter of 1999, falling to the lowest level since 1995.According to the National Delinquency Survey released by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA), the delinquency rate fell three basis points to 4.10 percent during the third quarter.The decline continues a trend that has seen the delinquency rate fall by 32 basis points beginning in the second quarter of 1998."The delinquency situation continues to benefit from the prolonged refinance boom experienced from 1998 to early 1999 and the influx of new mortgages associated with the record levels of home sales in recent quarters," said Paul Reid, executive vice president of the MBA.The percentage of loans 30 days past due decreased by 2 basis points to 2.88 percent and the percentage of loans 60 days past due decreased 1 basis point to 0.63 percent.

Members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants are answering readers' tax questions through April 15.Q: I bought a boat in February 1996 that under IRS rules meets the requirements for a dwelling. Can the interest on the loan be written off? How about the sales tax on the purchase of the boat? Storage fees, since I keep it at a marina? What forms would I use to write off anything pertaining to my boat? Can any other items be written off that I have not mentioned?A: The interest that is paid from the boat mortgage can be deducted on Schedule A, Itemized Deductions, as an interest deduction on a home.

Arthur Shanker got a surprise in the mail.When the Pikesville insurance claims adjuster looked over his Oct. 20 office phone bill, he noticed that Bell Atlantic had charged him for 32 three-way calls he insists he never made."

PREDICTING THE issues that will dominate next year's state elections at this early stage is akin to peering into a crystal ball. It is too soon to know what hot-button items will surface.Gov. Parris N. Glendening hopes that no burning controversies emerge, that he can campaign on a ''Happy Days Are Here Again'' theme, touting his successes, in an era of prosperity, on education, economic development and planning for the future (''Smart Growth'').He also intends to make sure every voter knows he is the true anti-gambling candidate, while the rest of the field is on the fence -- or tacitly in cahoots with casino interests.

That woman in the turquoise leggings. Isn't she someone? Of course she's someone, but isn't she someone?What about the short, athletic man with the flat nose? Or that one, with the incredibly well-cut arms?And that guy in the bagel shop, the one with the expressive features and what appears to be a heavy layer of pancake makeup at 7 a.m. -- he must be an actor, right?Suddenly everyone in Baltimore looks famous to me. Or at least vaguely familiar. It is late summer, after all, time for the Capistrano-like return of "Homicide."

THE OVERWHELMING STENCH from a composting facility on the Anne Arundel-Howard county border finally forced the Maryland Environmental Service to halt its contract with the company that was operating the plant. Replacing Browning Ferris Industries is a gesture which could not have come sooner to those who suffered because of the company's poor planning.Nearby residents complained that the odor from compost allowed to pile up over three months had sickened their children and their pets. Since the plant began accepting yard waste in November, the Maryland Department of the Environment has cited the yard for odor violations 13 times.

Informed choice basis of sound family, stateYour editorial of Feb. 11, ''A blow to family planning,'' is right on the mark.Cutting funds for international family planning programs is not the way to decrease abortions, nor is it the way to protect the health of mothers and children.Family planning programs provide many benefits. In addition to the obvious health benefits of spacing and limiting family size and the obvious environmental benefits of reducing rapid population growth, family planning programs serve another important function.

The doctors of ABC's Hopkins might look and sound like the characters on Grey's Anatomy, but they really are among the best in their fields. And they represent the changing face of American medicine with more women and top specialists from other countries. Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa says he never could have "dreamed" 20 years ago when he entered the United States illegally as a migrant worker that one day he would be doing brain surgery at Hopkins. "I was born in a small little border town between the United States and Mexico, and all I wanted to do when I came to the United States was make a little money and send it home to my family so that we could actually put food on the table."

During the recent road series between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox, two former Orioles Cy Young Award winners were having a conversation about the surprise team in the American League East. "The trouble with playing the Orioles," White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone said to Orioles broadcaster Jim Palmer, "is that they don't know how bad they are." Palmer allowed that his former teammate was just trying to be funny, but the Orioles have grown tired of hearing how they have found their way into the upper reaches of the division through some combination of smoke, mirrors, overachievement and lottery-sized good luck.

Sam Jaffa of Parkton uses well water, so he pays attention to rainfall statistics. He wonders: "Why is precipitation measured on a calendar-year basis? I suggest it should be a rolling 12-month basis. The surplus which may be built up ... does not magically disappear come Jan. 1." True. But droughts and surpluses can extend beyond a rolling 12-month window, too. There is no official yardstick. The calendar year is just one option. Where rainfall is critical, people can invent their own.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said yesterday that congressional hearings on the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program will be "good for democracy" as long as they don't betray U.S. secrets. The remarks were a striking reversal by the president, who acknowledged last month that he authorized the NSA program only after it became public in news reports and angrily scolded those who had divulged its existence -- a disclosure he said harmed national security and helped U.S. enemies.

Levees in New Orleans weren't the only barricades breached by Hurricane Katrina. The flimsy restraints that Congress was trying to impose on its budget process earlier this year collapsed within moments of the first angry critique of federal failures in protecting the Gulf Coast and assuring a speedy rescue of the victims. In their rush to spare themselves blame, the lawmakers quickly approved more than $60 billion in emergency relief money and expect to approve at least $50 billion more within weeks - all of which will have to be borrowed because the federal budget is in the red. What's particularly dismaying is that Congress seems to have learned nothing from the catastrophe and from the deep flaws in its pork-barrel procedures Katrina exposed so clearly.

An urgent-care facility is to open next month at 1206 Agora Drive in Bel Air. ExpressCare of Bel Air will treat non-emergency ailments such as sore throats, ear infections, and minor burns, cuts and bruises on a walk-in basis, said office manager Ruth Thompson. The center, which is to open March 7, will also provide physical examinations, X-ray and lab services, flu and tetanus-diphtheria vaccinations and hepatitis B immunizations, along with some pharmaceuticals. Occupational health services including return-to-work examinations, treatment of work-related injuries and drug screens will also be available, she said.

BOSTON - In a direct response to the March train bombings in Spain that killed 191 people, transit authorities here will begin random searches of passenger bags on subways and commuter railways. The nation's first comprehensive policy of inspecting packages on public transit will start next month, Police Chief Joseph Carter of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said yesterday. "Explosives are mainly what we are looking for," said Carter, whose agency is known in this region as "the T."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The argument most often heard in favor of same-sex "marriage" is that it is the "fair" thing to do. This is an interesting position, because having jettisoned one standard for marriage, those pushing for the inclusion of same-sex marriage now appeal to the public on the basis of another standard. But if there are to be no standards, or only "standards" that shift with the changing winds of culture (which then don't count as standards at all), on what basis are advocates of same-sex marriage appealing to the majority of us who, according to opinion polls, want to keep marriage for heterosexuals only?

In the delightful new film Love Actually, one of the characters notes that when the planes flew into the twin towers on Sept. 11 people called each other with messages of love. In the midst of a tragedy so immense, anger, pettiness and resentment receded and people embraced, regardless of difference. By reaching out with pure motives, they achieved a moment of spiritual ascendancy. In a pre-Sept. 11, world the holiday season tended to create its own spiritual momentum, re-igniting humane concerns dormant through the rest of the year.

Late mortgage payments increased in the second quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America reports. The increase in late payments was lower for conventional loans than for FHA and VA loans, according to the association's quarterly survey. The overall late-payment rate for residential loans was 4.77 percent, up 12 basis points from the first quarter, according to the survey. For conventional loans, the late-payment rate was 3.1 percent, up 6 basis points. For FHA loans, the rate was 11.81 percent, up 58 basis points, and for VA loans, 8 percent, up 19 basis points.