One month into tax season, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reporting that nearly 40 million tax refunds worth $125 billion have been issued. The average refund per taxpayer is $3,120. Those statistics are roughly equal to 2014 numbers. At this time last year, IRS had received 49,558,000 returns, just a little under the 49,651,000…
Sometimes it pays to file early. Remember that embarrassing admission a few days ago that up to 800,000 taxpayers who purchased health insurance through the Marketplace (healthcare.gov) had received botched tax statements? Forms 1095-A, used primarily to determine health care credits, were mailed out using the wrong numbers for the 2014 tax year. About 50,000…
Last month, the Obama administration announced that between three and six million households – about 2 to 4 % of taxpayers – would be faced with a penalty (or is it a tax?) at tax time for failing to secure “minimum essential coverage” to comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes referred to as…
When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) initially announced that, due to budget cuts, taxpayer assistance would be limited this season, taxpayers were concerned: what about tax filing questions? Taxpayers were told to expect long wait times on the telephone – if they could get through at all – and practically no in-person service at Tax…
Looking for help with your tax return? Have tax questions this season? Need to contact the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? Despite dire warnings about limited service, there are a number of ways to get answers. In order to get the fastest service, the IRS suggests that you first try their online tools: Where’s My Refund?…
Jim* (not his real name) knows all about the importance of having a secure password for his financial accounts. It’s what he does for a living. He does security work and has spent a lot of his professional life learning how to avoid a hack. So when he signed in to his TurboTax account last…
It turns out that scammers aren’t just targeting taxpayers: tax professionals are on their radars, too. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has warned tax professionals to use caution after reports of bogus emails started making the rounds. In the latest scheme, tax professionals are sent a bogus email with instructions to update their IRS e-services…
Despite threats from IRS that this might be a “miserable” filing season, things seemed to be going reasonably well. Until now. Today, the Obama administration announced that it sent out about 800,000 bad tax statements. The specific tax statement is form 1095-A, which is issued to those who purchased health care coverage through the Marketplace….
With concerns about identity theft continuing to mount, some taxpayers are wondering: Whatever happened to paper forms? That’s right. There was a time – not so long ago – that taxpayers actually filled out paper forms and posted them using the U.S. Postal Service. Now, it seems, everything old is new again. But finding those…
When it comes to choosing a tax preparation platform, some taxpayers like the opportunity to create and file a tax return on the internet by using a product like TurboTax Online. However, amid concerns about security, some taxpayers prefer the option to prepare and print a tax return to be mailed directly to the appropriate…