coming up on asian focus year end tax tips and a strategy for the new year. plus, we'll learn about the black dogs project of black dog syndrome and some powerful jazz. i'm mary sit. join me next on asian focus. >> good morning everyone and welcome to asian focus. i'm mary sit. the year is coming to a close and if you're wondering if there are last-minute things to do to help with your taxes in april or if you're wondering how to get in shape for get 16 our first guest has answers. the senior vice president

planner honored as boston's top 10 women business publication. >> they were focusing on women advisors, but i serve men as well. >> ok. that's good. let me ask you this, the end of the year, what are some things we can do, maybe tax strategies. >> yes. there are a couple different thins you can do, number one if it turns shout of the mutual funds you may own in a brokerage account, it's been a choppy year, so you may have some losses that you can offset some gains where you don't want an unanticipated tax bill hit you. so what you want to to is review your mutual funds within your brokerage account to see if maybe you should make judicious sales to offset profits that might cause an unpleasant tacts time. >> if your mutual funds went down don't worry? >> well, if they went down maybe there is a loss you could book to help offset the

the tricky thing about mutual funds is even if you're buying or selling in the year may may spin off capitol gains distributions, even though we have no profit these capitol to you. so sort of the like phantom income so you have to be careful in monitoring, so watch out for that potential trap at the end of the year. any other strategies? >> another one is let's do good at the same time that we're perhaps getting a tax break. you can actually go all of the way up to december 31st, charge a donation to a charity and that doesn't show up until your january bill but you get the tax deduction for 2016. >> as long as you make the donation before the end of the year. >> exactly. itemize your deductions, so if you make a $100 donation and 25% tax bracket you reduce your tax by $25, donate those

and they're worth a thousand dollars, you can get a $250 tax give away. >> i itemize mine, yes, i'll receipts. so charitable donations whether goods in your household, things you don't use anymore or money it exactly. and that will help reduce our taxes each time we do that. >> so those are a couple year-end tax things, also as part of planning for the new year you want to take into account you know how is your tax withholding happening. did you have a bonus, is your child now too old to be claimed as a dependent. >> what age do they have to be? >> well there are different ages believe it or not. >> really? >> depends on whether they are still in college or not in college anymore. so it is a different age depending on the situation, but sometimes people don't

college now and i'm still supporting them, you can still claim them as a independent. >> up until 26? >> even beyond that. >> oh, my gosh, i'm kicking my out. [laughs] >> you are not at a tax redination anymore, you're gone. [laughs] >> good job. exactly. so the thing to be careful of is knowing whether or not you can claim the child still as a dependent or not and if you know that child is no longer dependent that's when you really have to be careful in terms of your tax withholding. so you could try to do it at the end of the year or certainly by the beginning of the following year. >> less or more? >> more, because otherwise by losing the exemption for the dependent you owe more in taxes possibly. so you want to withhold more. >> m i'll just going to hire you. i don't like numbers. [laughs] >> ok. so a child whether or not your kid is a deconduction or not, what else? >> other things trying to get ready for the new year, you

you been doing financially, add up what's your net worth. >> it only gets worse. so how do you find that one? >> all you do is add up everything you own, savings accounts, ira, 401(k), add those up in the assets that you own, ok. then you subtract what you owe, your mortgage, your credit card bill, your car loan, so you take that simple math, add up everything you own including your house or condo and then subtract what you owe and that gives you a number and if it is positive that's great because then you have positive net worth if it is negative not good. >> say you have a house and you are paying off your house and still owe a mortgage but have a lot in it, you figured that part out too, right? >> let's say the house is worth $100,000 and you owe

so $100,000 on the positive side, assets you own, minus eggy thousand dollars, so that's in the positive column. 100 minus eggy, you have 20,000 positive net worth on the house. >> so you've figured out your net worth, what do you? >> so it's positive, that's good, because that means you own more than you owe. >> that's also a good thing. [laughs] >> simple math. >> i've got that one. >> positive, positive number. now negative, don't despair this is the end of one year and beginning of a new so it's time for a new ginning. >> so so many people students, huge student debt we wereee about all of the time everywhere and cret card debt, we're pretty highly mortgaged in the west. so give me some tips on how we can get in financial shape for 2016. let's say we are in thereat negative. >> the other negative, don't despair, there is always hope especially with the new year. what you want to do is look at

these loans are and also realize that the loans that you took out to go to college, buy a house are an investment. so it's ok to borrow for investments. now don't want to borrow in the form of credit card bill for that last starbucks cup of coffee they got because it's not going to be there anymore. >> or that last trip to europe. >> or memories,. >> so what you want to do if you look at what the interest rates are for each of these loans and forms of debt and then pick away, figure out rate. what don't i get a tax reduction for. focus on paying those off first so those would most likely be your credit card bills. so you pick the highest rate credit card. charging 20% a year, pay that down aggressively, done just do the minimum, pay more than the minimum, get them off the books as quickly as possible and then move down the list as

ok dough loris, let's say you become debt-free, except say the house or the big thing. how do you stay debt-free, many people get down to everything is zero and this is good, and it builds back up again, how do you stay debt-free. >> different people will have different ways of handling this weakness. let's say. it's advice, weakness and so some tips might be you can trees your credit card, don't take it outance don't go to the atm all of the time, if you do make sure you're not going to bounce a check in the future that sort of thing. one tip might be ok, if cret them. so it just takes more time. more time and that might be enough of a hurdle to keep you from over spending or don't carethy credit cards with you cash.

year's resolutions in terms of financial. do you have three for you? >> personally? ok. >> well save more, spend less. it's like with health and fitness eat less, exercise more. it is a perennial new year's resolution. >> save more spend less. so how do we make ourselves save more? >> right. as painlessly as possible you can save more # by saying oh, my, i just got a 2% raise, whoopee, cost of living, you let that flow through to your paycheck, you deduct your income tax, social security tax and medicare tax, what of that 2% did you get in your paycheck, not very up am. what you could do is say i'm going to increase and start my 401(k) and put 2% of my sally, so you get oo keep more of

in pre-tax. so each 2% after 10 years you're at 20%. there you go. >> that's saving more. spend less, stay otof the stores. >> busy with work or exercise. you're not out shopping, you're exercising. delores thanks so much for being with us. coming up next, we'll meet some extraordinary ordinary dogs and tell you why we kept

>> black dog syndrome is making headlines across the nation refers to the unfortunate phenomenon that black dogs, often the last dogs to be adopted and the first to be euthanized in rescue shelters. our next guest is photographer fred leavey who decided to turn his camera lens on to black dogs and show the world how beautiful they can be. his collection are the "black dog project." thank you so much for being with us. how did you get involved in

>> this project all started from a conversation at the local dog park where a woman was talk about how black dogs have a harder time getting adopted than other dogs and someone involved in the pet world as a pet photographer i was quite surprised that i didn't know about that. i was looking on a new personal project that i could sorts of focus in on and wanted to take pictures of the black dogs. everybody who owned a black dog has told me it is very difficult to get pictures of their dogs. >> was the lighting of the black dogs absorbed lights. >> and people don't really think about thousand light is hitting them, or depending on the coat if it is a curly coat it is going to absorb light, a flat it is going to reflect like blue or whatever the color in the room is and reflect that. so i thought to myself i'm a good photographer why don't i try doing a project in my

i wanted to do with studio lighting and get more experience doing that thing and i did, i started this project. i did a callout on social >> to get the black dogs. >> and we have a picture. let's take a look at some of beautiful. now did a callout session to find the dogs and brought them into the studio. >> right. this one is denver, denver is an amazing dog. i photographed him actually once before when he was just a puppy at this little easter event at a pet store and it was he is just amazing. he has a great story. he actually spent time with fireman at the fire station down on newberry street where the bombings happened, he spent time with the fireman right after that. amazing dog, he just walks happy. he now spends most of his time with third graders, making him feel good.

>> not all are shelter dogs. a lot of dogs had their own homes, some of them came from shelters but not all. >> who was this one? >> that's max. max was actually one of the few dogs in the book that didn't have a home before and was brought to me as someone to photograph to try to help them find a home and max does actually have a home. >> so they put this on the dopted him. >> did you do this book in order to convince people they should adopt black dogs? >> no, i didn't want people to think i should go out and adopt a black dog, the same reason someone wouldn't shouldn't think i saw 101 dalmatians and i want a dayimation. maybe when you're looking to adopt a dog they're going to consider other things besides just the coat of the dog or. >> let's go back to the picture of the chow-chow, that's my one asian dog in the book. what happened with this dog, do you know?

when they came to me they were talking about how the other dog was perfect for the project, of course like everybody who tells me. >> she was an older dog too, right. >> older dog, came from a very abused life before hand and the story in the book is really hilarious because they're talking about how when her owner and her first met it was not love at first life. it was coolness, chows are very temperamental. >> are they? >> once they bopped with a perp that's pretty much that's it for life and they don't really warm up to ether people, unlike denver the lab who love said everybody, right. >> they ended up bonding together and became best friends. >> it is really great and that dog has a great, wonderful life right now. it's really nice. >> fred, how are you to get the lighting just right. i've noticed every shot black on black, you've got a black

why did you choose that in. >> i wanted the challenge photographicly and do something in the studio and i didn't want to do the high hugh black against white because that was a little too easy and didn't really look as nice from the tests that i did. so putting plaque on black really -- there is blackberry. -- black on black really made me focus where the light was. i used a lot of light, three or four lights as well as other props to push the light around and there is a very small area of window in my studio, which is basically my basement that has the light set just right. so if they walk otof this space then it doesn't work well. >> was the owner present at all times? >> all of the owners were there and sometimes them and their dog and sometimes bring all of their friends and dog's friends and it was complete chaos. >> do you do the sessions quickly as possible because of the dogs?

were maybe at most a half an hour and depended pawn the dog. >> that's still a long time for a dog to sit. >> and by that time they're pretty much done with me and tired of the lights going on because i use strobes instead of solid lights. >> but you were able to capture really soulful expressions from these dogs, was that the owner talking to them or did you talk to them and establish repoire, how did that work? >> there is a lot of back and forth. i try to make sure that the dog is focusing more on the owner so there is a lot of strange things happening and i'm laying over the floor and they're standing over me with a treat mapping over my lens looking right at me to get that look. [laughs] some dogs are focusing on the owner or the treat or the toy depending on the dog. even beau the blind dog who was in the project who literally can't see anything and was walking right into the lights so there was all kinds of crazeinacy depending on the dog.

flexible and adapt to each dog's permanent. >> and not all dogs like the lights going on. one dog in the book, i literally only took six pictures because he didn't like the flash and within six shots we're like this is done because the dog is not happy and i'm not going to make the dog unhappy for the picture. >> this whole started out on a blog. what kind of reaction have been getting from the black dog project? >> wonderful responses from so many people from all over the world. the first time it wept viral it wept on huffington post and it was on their gate news" section and it was the most viral thing on huffington post that day and from then i've had emalls from literally all over the worldism i've had people send me pictures i started a separate page called i love black dogs dot dumbler.com because everyone was sending me pictures of

>> not as good as your pictures look, probably? were. >> of course. but i got this one woman sent me a picture of her son in the middle of chemo therapy, totally bald sitting there next to his black dog and i'm like i hope everything is ok and she is like oh, yeah that was like years ago and he's off to college now. and i'm like whew. but you know you get these kinds of e-mails from peep. >> so sid, what causes black dog syndrome and why do people adopt less and euthanize first? >> i think there is a lot of things go into that conversation. photography is actually one of those issues that a lot of shelters don't really have the financial means to hire a photographer. they just put them on the website. and most people who don't know how to take a picture don't think of that. they take a picture while they're in a shelter under bad lighting in a cage j it is basically like a black outline

lot of times the eyes are darker anyway so you usually don't get good photos, so people the first thing they're going to do is the process of it is shopping, they're shopping for their dog, even though they want to adopt it is still a shopping process. i i think that's another part of the problem that if it is thinking about shopping they're thinking about, you know, how does this dog look, does it match my fern h is it going to match my lifestyle in some way and i want people to think about not like the best dog looks feast them but the temperament. what kind of life style, are you a couch potato like me that wants to sit around and watch the patriots then. >> so bad photos make people not adopt the dogs as quickly as possible? >> lots of thins, not just one thing. >> other cultural things? the woman talks about in india and talks about the black dogs days or something, sort of a

>> i've heard a few different thins. i've had two different people in india contact me about how black dogs in india absorb negative energy, so people like to have the black dogs in the home which is kind of strange. and i've heard, just one e-mail that in hispanic societies that chihuahuas that are black are considered black luck so people don't want them and they will get discarded more quickly. >> what are you hoping to do with the black dogs project is to show black dogs are beautiful. and not necessarily adopt a black one but just look at them again and think about it. >> sure. fred thank you so much insharing your black dog roject with us. thank you very much. coming up, the amazing sounds as the energetic jazz

uric asco cabota is a powerhouse when it comes to jazz and improvisations and arrangements. she is a composer and pianests and a leader of the boston power jazz unit playing the original piece called archy express and we'll leave you with this musickism that's all for this addition of asian focus. thanks for joining us. i'm mary sit and i'll see you