Charity at holiday time means more than just putting your change into the traditional red buckets at the entrances to big-box stores. Needs at the holidays are even more pressing on families, with cold weather approaching and stress over whether they can provide any sort of meaningful holiday for their loved ones.
While traditional holiday
Tax Returns
You know about Black Friday and Cyber Monday – but are you aware of Giving Tuesday? Giving Tuesday is a recent invention – so recent, it is often preceded with a hashtag. It was started in 2012 on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving and has been gaining in popularity as a symbol of charity to
If you are attempting to buy a home on a low or intermediate income, you need every bit of help that you can get. Mortgage credit certificates are one of the lesser-known ways that the federal government can help.
A mortgage credit certificate (MCC) is essentially a form of tax savings. The mortgage interest that
MoneyTips Fall is here. It’s time for thinking about cooler weather, Thanksgiving, falling leaves – and taxes? While Congress debates changes to our tax codes, a few hours spent on your taxes now can produce benefits in April with the savings of both time and money. The following tips may be able to help you
Time’s Running Out If you received an extension of time to file your taxes this year, hopefully you made good use of it – because the due date is fast approaching. Monday, October 16, is the filing deadline.
Did you squander your extension time? If so, you’re probably out of luck. The IRS generally only
Every year, you do your part to fund America’s government by paying your taxes – but have you ever felt compelled to pay a little extra to the government? After all, our national debt has topped $20 trillion, or almost $62,000 per U.S. citizen.
Donations to the government are not as rare as you may
If you have been the victim of a disaster such as a fire, tornado, or the recent Hurricanes Harvey or Irma, you know that the last thing on your mind is how it will affect your taxes. Unfortunately, if you forget to take timely action on your taxes, your misery could be compounded. Depending on
You have bought an expensive new toy in expectation of your tax refund, and are now desperately waiting for the refund to arrive before the repo man and his large friend Vito come to visit. How can you find out the status of your refund at any time to estimate whether you need to make
It all looks so obvious in hindsight. Make a $500 deposit and your money will grow 18% in 10 days. You can receive a $1,500 loan by MoneyGram if you pay $170 for fees and insurance. A driveway sealer happens to be driving by and offers to coat your driveway for a low price. You
It can be difficult to tell myth from fact when it comes to tax refunds. The IRS would like to help you by clarifying some tax return myths, and we are happy to help the IRS achieve their goal.
Let’s start by clearing up the 5 top myths about tax returns as listed by the
Did you end up owing a boatload of money to the IRS at tax time without having the money to pay for it, or did you receive a large refund? While the former is a lot more unpleasant than the latter, they are both symptoms of bad tax planning. A big refund feels good until
For two years in a row, Americans are going to get a little extra time to file their taxes, thanks to a holiday that may be completely unknown to you. In 2017, the tax-filing deadline will be April 18 thanks to Emancipation Day.
Emancipation Day is a legal holiday in the District of Columbia, held
Instead of enjoying a tax refund this year, you are surprised to find that you owe Uncle Sam. Even worse, you do not have the money to pay these surprise taxes. What can you do?
One thing you definitely do not want to do is ignore the tax bill. That will only make your situation
Examples of really bad ideas: Forgetting your spouse’s birthday or your anniversary, do-it-yourself brain surgery, and forgetting to file your federal tax return or pay your federal taxes. You may be short on the cash to pay your taxes, but there are better ways to address your tax problem than avoiding it entirely.
The IRS
Are you a procrastinator who waits until the very last moment to file your taxes? Thanks to Emancipation Day, the filing deadline is April 18, 2017, to file your taxes for the 2016 tax year. That gives you a few more days to consider last-minute ways to lower your taxes.
Start by reviewing your possible
It is rumored that some of the wealthiest Americans manage to pay less in taxes than some of their employees. They achieve this by one of two methods: doing their own financial and tax planning or paying someone to do it for them. Simple, isn’t it?
The point is that the rich are able to
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
529 plans are one of the best options available to save for your child’s college education. Named after a section of the tax code, 529 plans are state-operated savings plans that provide tax benefits as long as the money is used for qualified educational purposes.
State 529 plans operate in a similar fashion to 401(k)
One of the tax deductions available to individuals and couples who own their home is the mortgage interest deduction. This deduction can save homeowners who owe taxes a substantial amount, especially if they have a mortgage with a high interest rate. An announcement by the IRS last week will provide some homeowners with even larger