If you are preparing to sell your home, taxes are probably not the first thing on your mind — and they probably shouldn’t be. However, when tax time does roll around, you need to understand what effects your home sale will have on your taxes.
Generally, profits from the sale of your primary home are
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How to Lower Your Rate and Save Money
Auto insurance payments always seem to go up each year when you receive your renewal quote. Despite this, people tend to stay with the same auto insurance company since they feel a sense of loyalty. However, given the current economic climate, how loyal will you continue to
In his first few weeks in office, President Trump has issued multiple executive orders covering a range of topics, and done so with great fanfare. He has established himself as a man of action — but how will his actions affect labor and the workplace? Predicting Trump’s strategy is difficult, if not impossible, but we
Contributing to a retirement account can be difficult for lower income households, but one can argue that it is even more important for those families to take advantage of all the retirement savings options that are possible. One of the lesser-known options applies directly to lower-income families – the retirement savings tax credit. Note that
When people think of tax shelters, they sometimes think of Swiss bank accounts, shady overseas investments, or fraudulent or questionable activities by wealthy but unscrupulous businessmen. That is an unfair characterization.
The TurboTax website sums it up nicely – “A tax shelter is any legal strategy (that) you employ to reduce the amount of income
One of the biggest mistakes many investors make is not considering the effects of taxes on their returns. Local, state and federal taxes can take a big bite out of your investment earnings.
This makes it critical to formulate strategies for minimizing the impact of taxes on your investments. Here are six strategies that can
You probably know about potential IRA tax traps related to withdrawals, rollovers, and estate planning that can saddle you with penalties and surprise tax bills. Did you know that the type of investments you hold could also hand you a surprise tax bill and potentially ruin your IRA status?
The most common of the traps
Changes are coming to your credit report – and this time, those changes may work in your favor. Thanks to some background work by the three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion), public records to be included in credit reports must meet higher standards. That action should result in a boost in credit scores
Slower Credit Growth for the New Year Are you using more or less credit these days? If your habits track the latest data released by the Federal Reserve, your rate of consumer credit growth has slowed considerably.
The Fed’s release for January 2017 revealed that outstanding consumer credit rose by $8.8 billion to $3.77 trillion
Soon you will be filling out your federal tax forms, and unless you are lucky enough to live in seven states, you will be filling out state tax forms as well. Are you fortunate enough to live in one of these seven states, or are you on the other end of the spectrum, dealing with
For many people, tax refund day is like Christmas in the spring. As they prepare their tax returns over the next few weeks, millions of Americans will hold their breath in anticipation of how much their tax refund is going to be — and then run to the mailbox every day hoping to receive their
When you use your car for both personal and business reasons and you are not fully reimbursed through your employer for the business expenses, you can deduct those costs from your taxes. How do you go about claiming these deductions? Assuming that you itemize, you have two general paths:
Standard Mileage Method – The IRS
The Dirty Dozen — a 1967 war movie starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Jim Brown, or a list of the top twelve tax scams as identified by the Internal Revenue Service? Would you believe that it’s both?
Each year, the IRS releases a list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams to watch out for
As much fun as it is to hold your tax refund check in your hands and rub them together with glee, direct deposit is a simpler and faster method of receiving your refund. It may be safer as well. Not only will you be spared the possibility of someone stealing your check out of the
Did your kids get a taste of the real world and decide that living off Mom and Dad was not so bad after all? Cheer up… you may still be able to claim them as dependents on your taxes.
Dependents can save money on your taxes in two ways: through individual exemptions and the potential
Have you ever received one of those love letters from the IRS that says you owe them more money? Occasionally a client calls me in a panic when they receive one. Most of the letters I have seen are due to the client or the tax preparer forgetting to include the sale of a stock
If you are paying college expenses for yourself or for one of your dependents, you may be able to deduct the tuition and fees on your federal tax return. Qualified tuition and fee expenses may be partially deducted as long as the expenses are not paid by others through programs such as scholarships, grants, or
Which Is True? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent consumer and financial watchdog agency that offers advice to consumers and levies fines against financial institutions engaged in questionable practices.
The CFPB is an unchecked, poorly controlled agency that restricts the opportunity of financial institutions to operate within a free market and applies
It’s never too late or too early to think about your retirement. One of the most common and effective retirement savings options is an individual retirement account, more commonly referred to as an IRA. This article will look at the differences between a traditional IRA and another type of savings account called a Roth IRA.
Caring for an elderly relative can be rewarding, but incredibly difficult – as well as expensive. However, it may be possible to recoup some of the costs through income tax savings.
There are three general approaches to tax savings on elder care costs – declaring your elderly relative as a dependent to receive an exemption,
By Tonya Rapley
Debt is killing us! It’s one of the main reasons I started a community movement to #BanishTheBalance. Over 60 incredible days, more than 4,000 participants paid off more than $200,000 worth of debt. The success of the movement led to a free e-course (you can sign up here) and is open to
Congratulations! You have just been handed your first little bundle of joy in the hospital and have embarked on the long journey of parenthood. It is a trip full of joyful experiences that make the corresponding aggravations worthwhile, and it comes with many benefits — some of which are tax-related. You can look forward to
Social Security is generally considered a tax-free benefit, but that is not always the case. Depending on the amount of alternate income that you have in retirement and your filing status, you could owe taxes on up to 85% of your Social Security benefits.
If you receive Social Security or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)
Any proper discussion of methods for reducing debt load should begin with the following disclaimer:
Dealing with excessive debt is, in several ways, analogous to losing weight. You did not acquire all that weight/debt quickly, and it may take you even longer to lose it — and without changes in eating/spending habits, the weight/debt will
For Valentine’s Day, we hope you bought a thoughtful gift for your significant other. It’s the thought that counts, of course, but let us give you a tip or two: women like jewelry. And, when it comes to fine jewelry, you should give thought to insurance.
Fortunately, your family’s everyday jewelry is probably covered by
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans are in the midst of controversy. Are they an effective way to incorporate more green energy into homes, or are they planting the seeds of the next housing crisis? Both statements may apply.
PACE loans are designed to finance home projects involving renewable energy and energy efficiency. While the
It is easy to lump exemptions, deductions and credits into the same basket of tax-saving mechanisms, but they are distinctly different. Here are the simplified differences:
What They Reduce – Deductions and exemptions both reduce your taxable income, and credits reduce your overall tax bill. With reference to Form 1040, exemptions and deductions all take
America may be in a continued economic recovery, but that recovery is not currently translating into more consumers paying their debts on time. At least that is the case with respect to auto loans and credit card debt in the third quarter of 2016, according to the American Bankers Association (ABA).
The ABA tracks delinquency
How much money do you think that you need to retire? There are many assumptions involved in answering that question, but one assumption is the greatest of all: how much money will you need for your health care costs? Fidelity projects that a 65-year old couple who retired in 2016 should expect an average cost
Your home is your castle, and it is also a source of tax deductions. Yet, every year, Americans let these potential tax deductions pass by, not realizing how to take advantage of them.
IRS Publication 530, titled “Tax Information for Homeowners”, can fill you in on the deductions that are available to you for the
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