Final statistics for the 2013 filing season (for 2012 income tax returns) show that e-filings increased by 2.5%. A total of more than 122 million returns were e-filed by tax professionals or by taxpay...

If you need more time or other help in paying your taxes, it will cost you more now. Starting December 2, 2013, the fee for obtaining an installment payment agreement from the IRS is $120, up from $10...

Cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, apply to nearly four dozen tax rules, and the IRS has announced these adjustments for 2014. With inflation running low, the adjustments are modest. They impact su...

Flexible spending accounts, or FSAs, allow employees to contribute a portion of their wages that can be used to pay for medical expenses not covered by insurance. The amount contributed to the FSA is ...

The IRS has announced the contribution limits for qualified retirement plans and IRAs for 2014. Due to low inflation, most limits remain unchanged from 2013 limits, for example, limits for contributio...

If you work for a company that offers a 401(k) retirement plan, think long and hard about what you want to contribute for 2014. The maximum contribution is $17,500 (plus $5,500 if you’ll be 50 or ol...

’Tis the season for giving, and who better to receive than your family? During the holiday season, if you have the financial ability to give substantial money or property to children, parents, or ot...

Everyone is familiar with the upside of mortgages: they enable people to buy homes and generate tax deductions for the interest portion of each payment. However, mortgages can become a burden that som...

Now is the time to figure your required minimum distributions (RMDs) from your IRAs and qualified retirement plans (e.g., 401(k)s). If you fail to take what you’re supposed to for 2013 by the last d...

Each taxpayer (other than someone who can be claimed as another person’s dependent) is entitled to a dependency exemption. This deduction is worth $3,900 in 2013 ($3,950 in 2014). A taxpayer can als...

Medical expenses can be deducted as itemized medical expenses only in the year in which they are paid. If you can’t use them in the year of payment because you don’t itemize or total medical costs...

No. An individual’s charitable contributions can be deducted only as an itemized deduction. Even if the rental property is a trade or business, with income and expenses reported on Schedule C rather...

Yes. Even though there is an age limit for making deductible IRA contributions, there is no age limit for making a conversion from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. There is no need to have earned inco...

High-income taxpayers pay an additional charge for Medicare Parts B and D. The Part B surcharges for 2014 are unchanged from 2013; those for Part D are only slightly higher for 2014 than in 2013.  �...

Gifts up to $14,000 in 2013 are not taxable for gift tax purposes (they are never taxable for income tax purposes, regardless of amount). The additional $1,000 per child could be taxable, although you...