The latest straight from the IRS — new rules, deadlines, guidance, and announcements explained in plain English.
As tax day creeps even closer, the IRS reminds you that their web site is http://www.irs.gov. That’s right, .gov. Not .com, .edu, .org, .net or any other variation on a theme. And exercise caution with respect to emails purporting to be from IRS. As the IRS has announced before, it will never send you an…
A little snow never hurt anybody. A lot of snow? That’s a whole other story. The IRS has announced that farmers and fishermen may request a waiver of estimated tax penalties if they were affected by the snowstorms that began on February 19, 2007. The reason? The magnitude of the storms may have affected the ability of many farmers…
US citizens or residents living and working abroad finally have some direction for purposes of filing individual taxes for 2007. The Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 increased the maximum amount of foreign earned income that may be excluded from gross income to $82,400. The law also limited the amount of housing costs…
No, no Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine or Charles Bronson here. It’s the IRS’ annual Dirty Dozen: tax schemes to avoid. The top schemes to avoid for 2007 (the list for 2006 is here), many of which have already been noted on this site, are: 1. Telephone Excise Tax Refund Abuses. 2. Abusive Roth IRAs (specifically…
I heard an estimate today that 20% of each dollar earned in the US next year will be spent on health care. Somebody is clearly getting rich. Maybe that’s why the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is gunning for pharmaceutical companies. After announcing a huge settlement with GSK just months ago, the IRS announced a similar…
The IRS is finding that there are already problems with returns involving the telephone excise tax refund. The most common mistakes seem to involve the form 1040EZ-T. Mistakes include not filling out the form completely or filing the form and your regular 1040 or 1040EZ (it’s one or the other, folks). It may also be…
There are a number of programs that offer preparation and/or help, depending on your circumstances. If you earn less than $39,000, for example, you can use one of the more than 12,000 IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites. To find the site nearest you, call 1.800.829.1040. If you are over the age of 60, you can…
As posted before, you may have a day or so extra to file your taxes this year. The IRS confirmed that the tax deadline this year will be Tuesday, April 17, 2007, for all taxpayers. The extra time is because April 15 falls on a Sunday in 2007, and the following day is a holiday…
The IRS announced last week that the Free File program for eligible taxpayers is now available. The program allows taxpayers with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $52,000 or less for the tax year 2006 to e-file their federal tax returns for free (and here you thought that nothing was free). This means that 70%…
Do you qualify for a refund of the telephone excise tax but aren’t required to file an annual tax return? It may be even easier for you to get a refund. The IRS has developed an even shorter form, the 1040EZ-T (try saying that quickly three times in a row) that you might be able…