Tax news and guidance for individual taxpayers — filing tips, deductions, refunds, and everything else that hits your personal return.
Philip Miles, an attorney in Central PA and author of the employment law blog Lawffice Space, writes: Who the heck is FICA? In an early episode of the hit sitcom Friends, spoiled rich-girl Rachel Green (played by Jennifer Aniston) is forced to take a job as a coffee shop waitress. After a few days of…
Taxpayer asks: I heard on the radio that we will have to pay taxes on the money from the Cars for Clunkers. If so, I am really mad because nobody said we had to pay taxes on it. Is this true? Taxgirl says: A number of web sites and um, what’s the word, liars opportunists…
Every summer, my husband and I have the same argument about whether we should get central air. We live in an old Victorian house in Philadelphia; it takes a while during the summer for the house to heat up but when it does, hoo boy, it gets hot. The thing is, it’s not easy to…
Laura Schultz was expecting to hear from the IRS. After all, the Denver-area house cleaner owed the IRS about $80. But when she opened up a letter from the IRS, it wasn’t quite what she was expecting: a refund check for $122,783.51. Schultz felt that it was a mistake – and it was. She called…
Taxpayer asks: Hi Kelly, With all the publicity about UBS and foreign bank accounts, I have some concerns that a lot of parents may be sharing… I know you’re a mom too (though your kids are too young for you to have to worry about this right now!) But, if you were in my shoes,…
Remember that great scene in the movie Footloose when Kevin Bacon is challenged to a game of chicken on the tractor? It seems that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is playing a little chicken of its own with taxpayers… The IRS has entered into a settlement with UBS to divulge the names of about 4,450…
Taxpayer asks: A friend of mine asked me to buy an ad in a book for her daughter’s beauty pageant. She claims that it is tax-deductible. I didn’t think that beauty pageants were charities, so how is this true? Taxgirl says: This question turned out to be far more complicated than I thought – even…
Taxpayer asks: My wife is a Girl Scouts Leader. Is all of her time and contributions to the troop tax deductible? If so, how? Taxgirl says: Okay, the bad news first: the value of your time spent volunteering for charitable organizations is never deductible. Ever. But there is good news! Out of pocket expenses relating…
Here’s my advice on a Friday morning: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. No pill will really help you lose 100 pounds without diet or exercise. No executor of a Nigerian estate is really going to send you millions of dollars just for answering an email. No seminar series is…
Taxpayer asks: Hi, I heard a car dealer on a radio talk show say that if the consumer owes any federal or state taxes when they buy a C4C car, the dealer is on the hook to get reimbursed by the consumer or eat the difference, because the federal payment will take out the arrearrage…