Retirement has finally arrived. You’re ready to start drawing on your retirement income sources. Enjoy this new phase of your life.
Unfortunately, you haven’t been able to retire from taxes – and your taxes will enter a new phase as well. You don’t have an employer to hold out taxes on your salary anymore. You’re
Taxes
A summer job is a great way for students to earn some extra money while building a resume for the future and learning new things about the working world. Typically, one of the hardest lessons for students to deal with is income tax. Working students may say, “Why is so much of my paycheck withheld?
A New Avenue for State and Local Taxes Americans love shopping online, in large part because of lower prices. Online merchants offer lower prices because they have a lower overhead compared to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers – and they also enjoy a sales tax advantage.
A 1992 Supreme Court decision prohibited states from requiring businesses to
You anticipated a large refund on your taxes to pay off some bills and put some money away in a rainy-day fund. Unfortunately, the money never showed up. What happened?
Your refund may have gone toward an unpaid bill selected by the government – your unpaid student loan.
Your federal student loan is
How do you plan to fund your children’s education? According to the 2017 Report from Sallie Mae, How America Pays for College, you are probably counting on scholarships and grants.
Sallie Mae finds that reliance on scholarships/grants is the highest in a decade, while college savings is on the decline. Savings covers less than one-quarter
What goes up must come down – when considering the effects of gravity. That principle doesn’t typically apply to taxes. In the rare cases where taxes do go down, other taxes tend to go up to compensate government coffers.
Because state taxes are often linked to the federal tax code in different ways, changes in
The recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) represents one of the biggest changes to the tax code in many years. Will the Internal Revenue Service be up to the challenge of enforcing these changes?
For the last five years, the IRS has been examining fewer and fewer returns. In calendar year 2016, 1.1 million
You are experiencing sweet satisfaction knowing that your taxes were filed on time. That is, until you realize that you took a deduction when you did not qualify for it, or forgot to claim an important tax credit that could save you hundreds of dollars … or until Congress suddenly resurrects some expired tax breaks,
Did your paycheck increase due to the recent tax cuts? Many Americans saw a change in their take-home pay beginning in February once the IRS issued its new tax withholding tables.
Businesses adjusted the withholding for their employees according to the new tables. To avoid a tax surprise in 2019, you may need to make
Most individuals in the U.S. know to keep their tax returns for three years in case the IRS decides to audit them, but few know that there are exceptions to that time limit. Some people throw away their oldest return when they file their new one annually, which is normally okay. However, in the following
Big Gains, Big Tax Headaches Were you tempted in 2017 by cryptocurrencies promising huge financial gains? If you did make a Bitcoin purchase, you may have done very well. The value of Bitcoin gained more than 1,200% over the year.
Your gains pose a vexing question. How are you supposed to pay taxes on your
When your identity is stolen, you have so many potential issues to deal with — changing passwords, closing accounts, dealing with fraudulent charges, and placing fraud alerts with the credit bureaus — that you may forget about potential tax fraud. Armed with your personal information, identity thieves can file a fraudulent tax return in your
It is hard to beat the convenience of a credit card for purchases, but does that same convenience make it worth paying your taxes by credit card? It might, but that depends on several factors involving money and time. “Your credit card is usually a high-interest option, but it is an option,” opines Betterment Head
Waiting until the last minute to pay your taxes can cost you if you are expecting a refund, since the government hangs on to your money and receives more interest on it. However, if you owe money to the government, that same principle applies to you. Why not wait until the last minute?
There is
Have you ever cheated on your taxes? If so, you are in the minority – but you aren’t alone, either.
A new Credit Karma survey finds that 6% of American taxpayers have knowingly cheated on their taxes. The real total may be higher, since the survey only captures those who are willing to admit it.
A Closer Look at the New Tax Law’s Effects The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) promised an income tax cut for most Americans. Is that promise less likely to be fulfilled if you live in certain states?
The Tax Policy Center (TPC) released a recent report addressing the TCJA’s effect on individual states and
If you are nowhere near ready to file your taxes as the deadline approaches, you may file an extension with the IRS that gives you up to six more months to file your taxes. Filing an extension will spare you from late filing penalties — 5% of the amount of tax you owe for each
In general, deducting pet expenses on your tax return can get you into hot water with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Usually pet expenses will not hold up should the IRS audit you. However, specific cases exist that allow you to take legitimate tax deductions for spending on your pet.
Regardless of how you justify
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget has been cut by $900 million
since 2010 and it now has 21,000 less employees than it did then, making IRS customer service challenging to say the least. The latest figures show that the IRS subjected 8.8 million taxpayers to “courtesy disconnects” through the 2015 tax-filing season that ended
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 credit for qualified retirement savings contributions,
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you should receive 1095 forms along with the W-2, 1099, and other tax forms that you receive from employers and financial institutions. The 1095 forms verify your health care insurance status for tax purposes. 1095-A forms debuted in 2015, while taxpayers received 1095-B or 1095-C forms for the
The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) gave most Americans a break on their upcoming taxes – but you don’t need legislation to cut your taxes even further with sound investment strategies that focus on tax optimization.
Here are a few ways to help yourself at Uncle Sam’s expense.
1. Shift Toward Capital
In 1996, the Small Business Job Protection Act created 529 savings plans: state-administered programs designed to help parents save for their children’s future college costs. In a 529 plan, deposited funds are allowed to grow free of federal and state taxes and growth remains tax-free as long as the money is used for qualified educational
MoneyTips The last few years have been difficult ones for the IRS with respect to security issues, and the agency is determined to improve security during this year’s filing. Electronic filing is particularly vulnerable because of the speed of the process — it is a favorite method among thieves who steal information from taxpayers and
If you have done your homework leading into retirement, you probably already know that Social Security benefits may be subject to federal taxes under certain circumstances. Did you know that some states also impose taxes on Social Security?
Currently there are thirteen states that impose at least some tax on the benefits of Social Security
On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court settled the issue of same-sex marriage in the U.S. with the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. This decision requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and for states to recognize such marriages that were performed in other states. Gay marriage became legal in all 50
Are you counting on your tax refund to pay off bills? You may need the cash before your refund arrives.
The IRS website states that typical refunds take less than 21 calendar days if you e-filed your return. However, if you are claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or the Additional Child Tax Credit
Taxpayers tend to shy away from taking the home office deduction, assuming that they will be targeted for increased scrutiny from the IRS. That is certainly possible, especially if your deductions are unusually large – but if you truly were entitled to the deduction, why wouldn’t you take it?
You may feel that you have
What two words cause the most panic to Americans? There are probably a hundred funny responses running through your mind right now, but we were thinking of a less humorous response: “IRS audit.”
Your odds of avoiding an audit are usually pretty good. The IRS reviewed 1.03 million tax returns in fiscal year (FY) 2016,
Computers and the Internet have become mainstays in virtually every area of American life in the 21st century. There are tremendous benefits and conveniences to this, of course, but there are also some downsides — such as the increased risk of identity theft that arises as we share more of our personal information online.
In
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