Tax news and guidance for individual taxpayers — filing tips, deductions, refunds, and everything else that hits your personal return.
Dear overeager taxpayers: As an employer and a tax professional, I am asking you in the nicest way possible: please be patient. I know you want to file your tax return already. Apparently you’re one of the lucky folks getting a refund this year. And I know you want your money. But give us some…
Last week, I advised that my best tax advice ever was to open the mail from the IRS. I find that to be, for many taxpayers, the single hardest thing to do. Of course, opening the mail isn’t always enough. Generally, the notice or letter advises you to take some sort of action, whether that’s…
The IRS has announced that the 2012 tax season is officially open. Well, sort of. The IRS has opened its doors for the season but what you can do just yet is still limited: e-file and Free File returns won’t be accepted until January 17, 2012. Today, however, you can (and should) start getting your…
A client contacted me this week with a tax problem. He sent over a big pile of correspondence that he had received from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). On the front of one of the letters, it read in big letters: Last Date to Respond to this Letter: XXXX 2011. Um, it’s 2012. The client…
My inbox continues to be chock full of questions about the Making Work Pay Credit for 2011. Taxpayers, it seems, are still confused about whether the credit was extended and how it relates to the payroll tax cuts. So let me see if I can set the record straight for you: The Making Work Pay…
Our twelfth and final charitable organization in the series is the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen, located at 207 Monmouth St. Red Bank, NJ 07701. I know what you’re thinking: the Philly girl is touting a restaurant in New Jersey? All joking and anti-Giants sentiment aside, I have a good reason and it’s not just…
Our eleventh charitable organization is Office of Letters and Light. I’m guessing the name doesn’t ring a bell. But maybe these names will: NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and Script Frenzy. NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy are both projects of the Office of Letters and Light, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. NaNoWriMo, the…
Our tenth charitable organization is Little Kids Rock. The spark for the organization has been around since 1996 when David Wish, an elementary school teacher, grew frustrated with the lack of funding for music education at his school. He began offering an after-school guitar class to interested students and the program expanded. Six years later,…
So here it is… After hours on Friday, December 30, 2011. 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 things to save…
Our ninth charitable organization is Hope for the Warriors. The organization was founded in 2006 by a group of military wives to support wounded U.S. service members, their families, and families of the fallen. The mission of the organization is “to enhance quality of life for U.S. service members and their families nationwide who have…