Tax News

The IRS announced that the filing season for 2013 income tax returns will begin on January 31, 2014. This is about a week or two later than usual. The government shutdown in October limited IRS work o...

If you use your car, truck, or van for certain purposes other than personal reasons, you can deduct the related costs or use an IRS-set mileage rate. The mileage rate for 2014 is: 56 cents per mil...

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

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...

The Social Security Administration announced the 2014 wage base used for figuring the Social Security tax portion of FICA and self-employment tax. For 2014, this wage base is $117,000, up from $113,70...

As a result of the government’s 16-day shutdown in October, the IRS has announced a delay in the start of the 2014 tax filing season. How much of a delay has yet to be determined. The original start...

The government shutdown ended on October 17 and the IRS instructed its employees to report for work on that date. The IRS says that operations will return to normal now. However, those who had extensi...

The government shutdown that began on October 1 impacts IRS activities. Here is what the shutdown means for you: Taxpayers must do: Still file returns on time and pay taxes due. This means anyone w...

IRS interest rates are unchanged for the fourth quarter of 2013 (October 1, 2013, through December 31, 2013). These are the rates changed on underpayments and overpayments: 3% for overpayments (2%...

Starting in 2013, high-income taxpayers may owe an additional Medicare tax of 3.8% with respect to their net investment income (investment income in excess of investment-related expenses). The tax is ...

A taxpayer who is owed a tax refund must file for it in a timely manner. The amount of the refund cannot exceed the portion of the tax paid within 3 years of the filing of the claim. However, a person...

A working spouse can contribute to an IRA on behalf of a nonworking spouse to grow the retirement savings of the couple. The contributions cannot exceed the earned income of the working spouse. In hon...

Lack of substantiation can undermine a taxpayer’s ability to use write-offs to which he or she is otherwise entitled. Take the case of Sean Richards, who claimed an education credit of $1,500. The a...

Earnings from a job or self-employment are taken into account for Social Security tax purposes only up to a “wage base” amount. For 2013, that amount is $113,700. The Social Security Administratio...

The costs you pay to get to and from work every day usually aren’t tax deductible. Commuting costs are treated as a nondeductible personal expense. This rule doesn’t change because the commute is ...

The Tax Reform Act of 1976 requires the IRS to report annually on data for individual income tax returns reporting incomes of $200,000 or more. According to the latest report, there were more than 4.2...