Tax news and guidance for individual taxpayers — filing tips, deductions, refunds, and everything else that hits your personal return.
M is for Miscellaneous Income. Wages and income, check. Interest and dividends, check. Net business income, check. Income from sale or disposition of property, check. But what happens to that income that doesn’t seem to fit nicely on your tax return? When you’re not sure where to report income, chances are it goes on good…
R&B artist R. Kelly took a huge hit to his finances this week when his 20,000 square foot dream home was auctioned for less than a million dollars. The home, which Kelly had built in 1997, was subject to a $3.5 million mortgage. R. Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been recognized…
L is for Life Insurance. Life insurance is one of those tricky concepts that make figuring federal income tax so frustrating for taxpayers. That’s because the question “Is life insurance taxable?” is properly answered, “It depends.” Here’s the scoop. Generally, for federal income tax purposes, life insurance proceeds due to the death of the insured…
K is for Kidnapped Children. When an Alabama boy was taken from his school bus last month and held hostage, it made national news. It was horrifying and nearly impossible to think that such a thing could have happened, that a child could be taken from his parents. But it happens more often than you…
J is for Junk Fees. If you’ve ever bought or sold a home, you’ve probably seen a laundry list of fees on your sale or mortgage papers. These fees, usually found at the bottom, are in addition to notary fees and appraisal fees, and are sometimes called “junk fees.” While a specific fee may be…
As tax season heads towards the home stretch, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer refunds have been delayed. While taxpayers expected minor glitches associated with a late start to the tax season, the magnitude of the delays, especially those involving the form 8863 for education credits, took the tax world by storm. Angry taxpayers have been…
H is for Hardship Withdrawal. When resources are limited – especially in a tough economy – taxpayers look all over the place to pay bills, from the equity in their homes to under the sofa cushions. One of the options that taxpayers often consider is a hardship withdrawal from a retirement plan. Retirement plans, such…
When the Internal Revenue Service finally announced that it was accepting federal form 8863, Education Credits (American Opportunity and Lifetime Learning Credits (downloads as a pdf), taxpayers heaved a sigh of relief. With a delayed tax season already in play, the additional two weeks pushed filing dates out more than three weeks for up to…
Every year, we expect to see a few glitches in tax filings, including software bugs and processing issues. Generally, those are resolved pretty quickly and without much interruption. This year, however, the Minnesota Department of Revenue has taken the rather remarkable step of advising taxpayers not to use Intuit products, including TurboTax, to file your…
D is for Disaster Relief. The forecast for the past several days has been terrible with warnings and advisories for gusting winds, heavy rain and ice, and several inches of snow slated to blow into the Philadelphia area. Did the storm live up to the hype? The storm really did pack a punch in other…