Archive for the 'Taxes' Category


17 Tips for End of Year Tax Planning

Time to get your financial house in order for tax season! It seems like every year when we do our taxes, there’s a few things we wish we would have done in December to reduce our tax bill just a little more. Sound familiar?
That’s where a little planning results in great rewards! Here’s your list [...]


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Your Tax Questions Answered

While I do have a lot of tax knowledge, most of it from volunteering at VITA, I am by no means an expert!
Every so often, I forward a bunch of questions from readers to our local IRS agent to either answer or confirm my answers. Our contact recently retired after over 3 decades of service, [...]


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Do You Report All Your Income?

It came to my attention recently that one of the service providers of our family does not report all of his or her income. I’ve always “known about it” in a roundabout way, but it was actually stated to me directly. I’m in a quandary about what to do…. and I’m also mad about it.
The [...]


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Myth Busted: $7,500 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is Not a Credit

UPDATE: $15,000 Home Buyer Tax Credit possible! Congress passed an $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit for 2009. The $7,500 tax credit outlined below will still apply to homes purchased in 2008.
UPDATE 2: The $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Extended the deadline until June 30, 2010. In addition, it will now include [...]


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Unconventional Roth IRA Strategy to Lower Tax Bill

I’ve been utilizing a tax strategy the last few years to take advantage of low tax rates. Huge deferrals and unpaid maternity leaves gave us some room in the 15% tax bracket to convert traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, and even 401ks to Roth IRAs. Although we had to recharacterize some of it, we were [...]


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