Tax news and guidance for individual taxpayers — filing tips, deductions, refunds, and everything else that hits your personal return.
If you believe the headlines, sorting out the Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as “Obamacare”) is going to be the single worst moment of your 2015 tax filing season. That might be true for some taxpayers. But most taxpayers – about 130 million or so – aren’t going to feel any pain at all….
Getting those tax records together for the 2015 filing season? Don’t forget about Bitcoin. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued guidance to taxpayers in 2014 on how to treat Bitcoin – and other virtual currency – for federal income tax purposes. That guidance, IRS Notice 2014-21, (downloads as a pdf) indicates that Bitcoin and other…
So here it is, just about 12 hours before midnight on the east coast. You had the best of intentions to do some sort of tax savings strategy before the end of the year and you blew it. You’re done. Or are you? It turns out that there’s still time to do a couple of…
This time of year, there are a lot of articles offering advice about maximizing tax deductions. But not all advice is equal – and those “tax saving” moves aren’t for everyone. Here are eight “tax saving” year end moves that many taxpayers should avoid: Stock Harvesting. Every year, you hear the exhortations to “Sell, sell,…
Christine O’Donnell, former Senate candidate and current Tea Party activist, is hopping mad at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). O’Donnell claims that, for the second time in five years, the IRS made a serious error on her tax records, this time issuing a levy by mistake. O’Donnell told The Washington Times (where she has an…
You can deduct money donated to charity but not the value of your time – even if you can put a dollar figure on it. That, according to Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), ought not be the case for all volunteers. This month, Rep. Loebsack, together with Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), introduced H.R. 5811, Volunteer Emergency…
(Update: The President signed the Extenders bill last night. H/T Ashlea Ebeling) With tax season just around the corner, there’s good news and there’s bad news for taxpayers. I’ll give you the good news first. Despite Congress waiting until the last possible minute (and then some) to pass the tax extenders bill, Internal Revenue Service…
With just over two weeks left in the 2014 calendar year, the Senate finally made up its mind about the tax extenders bill. The bill, which extends the life of a number of tax breaks through 2014, passed the Senate 76 to 16. Only 60 votes were needed for approval. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) referred…
It will cost you less at the pump to fill your car next year. The U.S. Department of Energy has issued its predictions for the price of gasoline for 2015 and the numbers are the lowest full-year average since 2009. Gas prices are expected to drop 35 cents to $2.60 a gallon. The news is…
Is your phone ringing off the hook with numbers you don’t recognize? Those might be spam calls fishing for personal or financial information: they might even be IRS impersonators. Identity theft is a growing problem these days for taxpayers. The more you know, the more can protect yourself.