Tax news and guidance for individual taxpayers — filing tips, deductions, refunds, and everything else that hits your personal return.
Last night, the power came back on in our house, following an outage due to Hurricane Sandy. We were lucky to have the power back on so quickly: our power company, PECO Energy, called Sandy “the most damaging storm in company history.” Many of my friends are still without power and have been told that…
As I type this, I am watching the winds pick up outside of my window. It’s a gloomy day out here in eastern Pennsylvania and about to get gloomier: Hurricane Sandy is headed our way. I grew up in coastal North Carolina. It’s hurricane central so I’ve spent plenty of time taping up windows, filling…
I am moving. It feels weird to finally say that out loud (er, yes, the blog counts as out loud). I have lived in my current home in Philadelphia for fourteen years: my entire adult life, more or less. In that time, I’ve stored up a whole houseful of memories. I have hosted Thanksgiving dinners…
Over the past 24 hours, I’ve been asked quite a bit why I have haven’t written about the leaked Romney speech. You know. This speech: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon…
And just like that, summer is nearly over and it’s back to work. This week, I’ve been sorting through the “Ask the Taxgirl” mailbag and I’m seeing a number of questions that are similar in nature. Many of them are related to the same, tired arguments that taxpayers make over and over. Just because your…
It’s a pretty exciting week at the law firm: we’re moving to a new location. I’ll admit to being a little nostalgic about the big move. We’ve been in the same offices for more than eight years. I was actually hugely pregnant with my daughter when we signed the lease and had to sign a…
We’re smack in the middle of wedding season across most of the country. Statistically, more couples will tie the knot in June than any other month but the official popular ‘season’ runs from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day – kind of like vacation season. According to The Wedding Report, nearly 2.1 million couples got…
The House of Representatives voted today to extend existing tax cuts (as of today, I’m adding the term “so-called Bush tax cuts” to the list of phrases I promise not to say anymore this year – like the one that rhymes with Saxmageddon). The 256-1717 vote for H.R.8, Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of…
It’s been a quiet hurricane season so far on the east coast. After last year, that’s a relief for a lot of folks. And it looks like the pattern will continue: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) is predicting a “near normal” season for the year, with expectations of 13 named storms, 5 hurricanes,…
I hate it when news reports give the impression that something is totally different than it really is… This is why when I checked email yesterday, I was overwhelmed by the number of folks that seemed to think that Congress passed a law extending tax cuts for the middle class. That didn’t happen. Here’s what…