When’s the Best Time to Buy an Airline Ticket?
When looking for a cheap flight, we often focus on the airline & the traveling dates. That strategy can lower your total cost but those aren’t the only factors to consider. Read More.
What The Two Month Payroll Tax Cut Extension Means for You
Federal lawmakers finally reached a compromise or at least for the next two months on the payroll tax cut extension. While the average taxpayer will keep an extra $83 in their pockets, employers may have been dealt a major blow. Read More.
What Do I Need to Know About 1099s?
These are the tax documents sent by business owners for whom you’ve done $600 work or more in the past year. Read More.
Gifting Millions And Not Owing Any Taxes
As you may already know, you can gift $13,000 per individual without having any chance of being subject to gift tax for the year. This is referred to as the annual gift tax exclusion which is different but related to the lifetime gift tax exemption. Read More.
Should I Use an Online Tax Software Program to File My Return?
While hiring a CPA or Enrolled Agent (EA) is typically the easiest and least risky way to file, it may not be the most economical. We decided to take a deeper look at the online tax software programs and see how they compare to using a CPA or Enrolled Agent. Read More.
The Self Employed Can Get a Big Tax Break From Retirement Savings
Now is the time to start acting on year end tax saving strategies. For those that are self employed or have a side business, the savings can be significant by contributing to a tax friendly retirement plan now or or before April 16, 2012 (April 15th is a Sunday). Read More.
What? The Bank Doesn’t Want Your Money?
In unprecedented fashion, Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) announced (8/4) that they don’t want any more money from some of their largest clients (over $50M in deposits) and they will start charging 13 basis points or .13% for holding their cash. You might be asking yourself why would a bank not want deposits and how will this announcement potentially affect the rest of us? Read More.
3 More Banks Go Under. Is Your Account FDIC Insured?
The financial woes for many regional banks continue with three more shutting down this year, bringing the total to 61 as compared to 157 in 2010. While many of the largest banks (i.e. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Citigroup) are in relatively stable financial position, it is always important to make sure your bank accounts are FDIC-insured. Read More.
Negotiating Your Rent in a Tough Market
The recovery in the rental market over the past year has continued to build with increases in both rental prices and occupancy rates in almost all 82 US markets. There also doesn’t appear to be any softening in sight with home ownership levels continuing to fall and more renters in the market. This means your rent is likely to go up when it’s time to renew. But, there are certainly actions you can take to try to negotiate your rent. Read More.
Premium Content
What Should I Know to Avoid the Alternative Minimum Tax?
The alternative minimum tax (AMT) was originally created as a way to ensure that wealthy taxpayers not take advantage of tax loopholes and instead pay a minimum amount of income tax. Read More.
Who is Liable for Your Credit Card Debt When You Die?
When a loved one passes away there are usually financial implications to the surviving family members and other named beneficiaries. Although this is an uncomfortable situation to think about, it is important to understand what happens in the case that the deceased has outstanding debts, particularly credit card debt. Read More.
Is Your Employer Withholding Too Much Social Security Tax?
By now, we all know that taxes, for the most part at least, will not be increasing as a result of the bush tax cut extension recently signed into law. Working Americans will start to be rewarded with a 33% reduction in Social Security tax or a 2% cut from 6.2% to 4.2%. This means that employers will be taking out less withholding tax from employee paychecks in 2011. Read More.
How Will the Proposed Real-Time Tax System Impact You?
All indications are that the IRS will continue to seriously consider implementing a real-time tax system for individual tax return filings. Despite the benefits, there are several pitfalls with this proposed plan. Read More.
Businesses with Sales over $20,000 Need to Prepare for form 1099-K
Beginning with transactions made this year, income that came to you through third-party payment processors like PayPal and credit and debit card companies need to be reported to both you and the Internal Revenue Service on the new 1099-K form. Read More.
