In my other post on taxes, I looked at some of the potential red flags for the Internal Revenue Service when you are raising money to adopt a child from Russia.

But there are ways of coming up with money that won't cause conflict with the tax man, and I want to go over some of them now. You should go over these options--and the issues I raised in my earlier post--with your accountant as early as possible to plan out your adoption expenses.

Rebecca on the Viet Nam Adoption Blog recently pointed out step one for any prospective adoptive parent--cut your expenses. Say what you will about Suze Orman, but the woman is right about one big thing: You can do a lot more in life when you're not spending $3.50 a day for an iced moccachino latte (or the overwrought caffeine drink of your choice) at your trendy neighborhood coffee bar. Savings: maybe more than $1,000 a year.

Step two, do some easy saving: Switch your checking and savings accounts to Bank of America and sign up for its "Keep The Change" account. The commercials are hokey, but putting aside the little bit of cash that's left over from every purchase does add up. I keep waiting for some other bank to get smart to this idea. And the taxes on interest earned on this money will be light.

Step three, get gifts of cash. Under current IRS rules, an individual can give up to $12,000 to someone else as a gift every year. That means your parents could give you $24,000 a year if each gave separately. That's pretty much the whole nut for a Russian adoption right there. If your adoption stretches over two years, as my second one did, it gives individuals the opportunity to make another $12,000 gift to you. Any such gifts are not taxable to you, and, while your parents--or other gift-givers--would have to report them to the IRS, they are not taxable to them until the gifts they have given in their lifetime total more than $1 million. Remember, too, that a gift has to be a gift: You can't sell your Escalade to your parents and call the resulting income a present.

Step four: Consider a home equity loan or line of credit, which Mary recently wrote about on the Ethiopia Adoption Blog. But read the fine print first: U.S. tax rules could make it possible for you to deduct all or part of the interest you would pay. The big problem with this approach is that the IRS could limit how much interest you deduct if the loan take together with your first mortgage boosts your debt to a level above your home's value. And with the real estate boom going bust in many parts of the U.S., this could leave you in tax jeopardy. Talk to your accountant first.

There are a few other smart tips in this thread, which appeared on the Russia Adoption forum not long ago: Using a rewards credit card from a hotel chain that has a hotel in Moscow; collecting frequent flier miles from everybody you know for your flights (or at least for an upgrade to more comfortable seats); and asking for the hotel's or air carrier's "adoption rate" when you book. And no negative tax implications that I can see.

Put some of these tips into practice, and the tax credit you will get for your adoption will begin to look like real found money.