It’s nearly the end of September (whew) and we’re wrapping up back to school. To help you stay organized, I’ve made a list of five quick tax tips – for everyone but especially students – to keep in mind:
- April 15 of each year is the due date for filing your federal individual income tax return. Your return is considered filed timely if the envelope is properly addressed and postmarked no later than April 15. If the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the due date is delayed until the next business day – that is the case for next year: since April 15 falls on a Sunday, returns are due on April 16, 2012.
- If you can’t file your tax return by the due date, you can request an automatic extension of time to file by filing a federal form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, (downloads as a pdf) by the due date. Remember, however, that an extension of time to file is not an extension of time to pay.
- Don’t forget about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at tax time. You may qualify for the EITC if you worked last year but did not earn a lot of money. To find out whether you might be eligible, check out the EITC Assistant.
- If you are a dependent, you may still have to file a tax return. Whether you must file a return depends on several factors including the amount of your unearned, earned or gross income, your marital status, any special taxes you owe and any advance Earned Income Tax Credit payments you received.
- If you need help, ask. Call the IRS Toll Free, 1-800-829-1040. Hours of Operation: Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. your local time (Alaska & Hawaii follow Pacific Time).
Those tips should help you stay organized at home. To help you stay organized at school, my friends at MS Office have compiled a list of five tips of their own:
- Collaborate simultaneously with classmates, or review your term paper with mom while she’s on a business trip, using co-authoring in the Word Web App.
- Show off your work! Embed your presentation (PowerPoint 2010) or science experiment data (Excel 2010) into a blog post with just a few easy steps.
- Quickly crop photos in Word 2010 and PowerPoint 2010. You can also edit audio and format videos within PowerPoint 2010 — no special media editing software needed.
- Use Word 2010 for more than just your standard paper. New charting and graphing tools make it easy to add graphics that illustrate your point, or search thousands of free templates at Office.com to create dazzling posters and flyers.
- On a tight budget? Let Excel 2010 help you manage your expenses. You can even deter impulse shopping by checking your budget on-the-go with Excel Mobile 2010.
And that, of course, brings us to our final back to school giveaway. It’s easy to enter. Just post a comment below to tell me about the most enjoyable project (papers count as a project) you ever did in school.
I’ll choose two winners randomly (using a number generator) out of all of the qualifying entries. The winners can from boxed copies of Microsoft Office for PC (featuring Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and Access) and Microsoft Office for Mac (featuring Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook).
Here are some more rules because, as you know, I’m a lawyer and I like rules:
- Entries must be posted in the comments section for this blog post in the space below by 10:59 p.m. EST on September 28, 2011.
- Don’t panic if your comment doesn’t show immediately. If it goes to moderation because, for example, you’re new here, the time stamp on your comment is what counts.
- I love my Twitter followers and my Facebook fans but for this particular giveaway, tweets and Facebook comments will not be counted. Ditto for emails. You must leave your comment on the blog at this post.
- You can enter as many times as you like but you must leave a different answer each time you comment.
- Offensive comments or comments that otherwise violate the comment policy will be deleted and will not be considered valid for purposes of the contest.
- Pingbacks and other links will be disregarded for purposes of the contest.
- You must include your full name and your email address with your entry, just enter it when you register to comment. I won’t publish your email address but I do need contact information for the winning entry.
- Due to shipping considerations, only United States addresses, please. Sorry, Canada, eh?
- I respect your privacy and I will not send you anything unrelated to your entry in this contest.
- By entering the contest, you agree that I may post any part or all of your submission including your name as a part of the contest announcements or promotions, with the exception of your email address.
Comment away!