Tax News

July 20, 2015 10:20 am

The bad news: it’s all too easy to trigger tax penalties. The good news: A number of penalties can be waived if you have a good excuse. Here are three common penalties and the excuses that can resul...

July 13, 2015 10:16 am

With summer vacation approaching and mortgage rates low, some taxpayers may be thinking of buying a second home. Others who already own a vacation home may be renting it out for part of the year. How ...

July 6, 2015 10:01 am

With spring in the air, many homeowners are fixing up their homes. Some projects may be minor; others are major. Homeowners do these activities to improve their living conditions and raise the value o...

June 29, 2015 9:14 am

While about half the states have laws requiring adult children to provide financial support for indigent parents, most adult children feel a moral obligation to provide needed support with or without ...

June 22, 2015 8:53 am

Crowdfunding is the practice of raising small amounts of money from a large number of people to fund specific projects or ventures. These activities can be personal, charitable, or business-related. A...

June 15, 2015 8:31 am

Americans are the most generous people on earth, giving $335.17 billion to charity in 2013 (the most recent year for statistics). Uncle Sam, however, doesn’t give you tax breaks for every good actio...

June 8, 2015 8:05 am

While many tax limits and threshold amounts are fixed by the Tax Code, a great many others are adjusted annually for inflation by law or IRS discretion. Despite the fact that the rate of inflation has...

June 1, 2015 3:20 pm

There are many current needs—health care premiums; mortgage payments—that use up our hard-earned dollars, making it challenging for many people to save money for future needs. Fortunately, Uncle S...

May 22, 2015 3:24 pm

Whether you prepare your return yourself (on paper or electronically) or use a paid preparer, you need information to input. Hopefully, you’ve kept great records throughout the year to simplify your...

May 22, 2015 2:58 pm

With the real estate market heating up in most locations across the United States, a personal residence is again an important tax shelter for homeowners. You can garner tax breaks when you buy, while ...

May 22, 2015 12:17 pm

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposes an individual mandate starting in 2014: carry minimum essential health coverage for you, your spouse, and dependents under age 18 or pay a penalty. The penalty do...

May 22, 2015 12:06 pm

Each year the IRS announces cost-of-living adjustments to dozens of tax items, including standard deductions, personal exemptions, and retirement plan contribution limits. But there are some dollar am...

May 22, 2015 9:32 am

More than 50 tax breaks that expired at the end of 2013 were extended for 2014 and can be used on 2014 tax returns. Many of our readers have expressed confusion about which breaks have been extended, ...

January 5, 2015 11:08 am

A new tax year is set to dawn shortly and recently released cost-of-living adjustments can help you plan for 2015. Due to low inflation, increases in the tax brackets and other tax items are minimal; ...

December 19, 2014 12:27 pm

As a holiday gift to the nation, Congress passed the so-called extender bill. This extends retroactively to January 1, 2014, nearly all of the 55 provisions that expired at the end of 2013. The extens...

October 23, 2014 2:33 pm

The Social Security Administration announced the 2015 wage base used for figuring the Social Security portion of FICA and self-employment tax. For 2015, this wage base is $118,500, up from $117,000 in...

October 3, 2014 10:15 am

The IRS reports that 13 million taxpayers are on extension for filing their 2013 returns. If you are one of them, don’t miss the filing deadline of October 15, 2014; returns filed after this date ar...

September 9, 2014 11:41 am

IRS interest rates are unchanged for the fourth quarter of 2014 (October 1, 2014, through December 31, 2014). These are the rates changed on underpayments and overpayments: 3% for overpayments (2%...

May 22, 2014 1:50 pm

For the past 5 years, taxpayers with adjusted gross income up to a certain amount ($58,000 in 2013) have been able to prepare their federal income tax returns and file them electronically at no cost. ...

April 16, 2014 12:03 pm

The numbers are out and they’re not comforting. Taxpayers spend an exorbitant amount of time and money filing their federal income tax returns each year, and this filing season had been no different...

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Tax Glossary

Cash method of accounting

Reporting income when actually or constructively received and deducting expenses when paid. Certain businesses may not use the cash method.

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