Jan 27
Five Facts about IRS Publication 17
While the Internal Revenue Service provides publications about a wide range of topics, there is one publication every taxpayer should have with them when they are preparing their federal tax return. Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax is available at IRS.gov and contains a wealth of information for individual taxpayers.
Here are the top five things the IRS wants you to know about Publication 17 and how it will come in handy when you prepare your taxes.
Sep 28
To quote the beginning of an article from TWTP titled ANOTHER GOVERNMENT UNDERCOVER STUDY OF TAX PREPARERS “The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has prepared a report titled “Most Tax Returns Prepared by a Limited Sample of Un-enrolled Preparers Contained Significant Errors” based on an “undercover” operation conducted during the recent tax filing season.” If you wanna no more you need to read the whole piece. For my 2 cents read the comments.
“Most people have some degree of financial concern in their lives. How will I pay the bills? What will happen if I’m suddenly injured and unable to work? What if I lose my job?” Trent covers this fantastically in his post Addressing Financial Worries in a Healthy Fashion.
In the finial post over at THE FLACH REPORT we must say good bye to a blog. For those of you not familiar with this blog it covered Sole proprietors and one-person LLCs who file a Schedule C with a great deal of valuable information. Robert states that although he’ll no long post in this blog but leaves it active so those in need can find the valuable information within in the archives. Please see the last entry in a post called ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST.
The Tax Foundation brings us a “Joke of the Day” You’ll either see it or you won’t. For those of in the biz, (at least from my point of view) this is very funny.
“What many seem to forget is that a fortune doesn’t consist of just one thing. A million dollars isn’t acquired all at once or not at all.” This is a line from the post From Pennies One Million Dollars Grow written by Penelope Pince over at Our Fourpence Worth. This is a fantastic look at money. I would encourage all to go have a read. Penelope, I like the charts you made.
Out of the mouths of children. A shocking statement is made by a son as to what he would do if he received a large amount of money (a bonus). Children are truly the best, their minds are wide open and depending on the situation, so honest in their thoughts.
For another look at the bail out (in my opinion one that is optimistic) check out the Guest post over at $aving to Invest, titled The Trillion-dollar bailout and why it will be profitable for taxpayers by Tony Parker. Once again, I had to put my two cents in. Read the comments, all of them.
Like Kelly over at TAXGIRL, I have received a lot of questions about losses from dying stocks as the market drops only to rise a bit then plummet further. Her post Some Straight Talk On Capital Losses fills in the information most will need for the situation. Great Job Kelly taking us back to work. Thanks.
Everyone wants to save money. This coming tax filing season those of you who insist on doing your own and use a PC to compute/figure your return then the news is out; Free e-filing for all?, First free filing shoe indeed drops, and my personal favorite- More e-filing fees evaporate. Be sure to check out all three post from Kay over at Don’t Mess With Taxes. And remember, if you are going to do your own I recommend TurboTax. (Which TurboTax Is Right For You? )
Ever wonder about the FDIC, and what would happen if they went under? Ihave a few times. For a bit of insight on this check outIs the FDIC a memberFDIC?A post fromGerald Prante atThe Tax Policy Blog.
Also from The Tax Policy Blog, Joseph Henchman writes Did 1997 Capital Gains Tax Exclusion for Housing Contribute to Economic Crisis? If your are wondering, I think there is indeed a link.
“The United States Patent and Trademark Office has undertaken a practiceof granting patents on so-called “tax strategies,” legal plans for avoidingtaxes.” If you want the whole story go check it out at theTaxProf Blogat this link.-Wolfman:Patenting Tax Strategies.
Tiny leaks and evaporation put a constant drain on your resources. Penelope fills us in on 101 Ways to Save Money in Your Everyday Life. Yes I did learn something
Dealing with market volatility? If so, then Kay Bell over at Don’t Mess With Taxes has a great post titled Taking the sting out of stock losses at tax-filing time. She points out several other tax blogs with links to what their saying (nope not taxguy) about the turmoil. Then she list what Melody Kump of the Raymond James & Associates office in Austin Texas has to say about it.
We have all heard the story or stories on how our government pays outrageous prices for things (like toilet seats, plungers, or hammers) in a report from Peter over at The Tax Lawyer’s Blog find out how one taxpayer went the next step to pay his tax bill in this post Taxpayer Pays IRS Bill With Toilet Seats. I think this is a great idea, only . . . Did it work?
Trent over at the simple dollar reminds us all of our largest investment in his post Looking at Your Career as an Investment. Go check out views on this.
I have had a great turn out for my series Mistakes Made… see you tomorrow for TWTP guest post. Wednesday’s guest post is from Peter of at The Tax Lawyer’s Blog and Friday I am glad to have Living Almost Large here with a guest post. With Much more to come from other great bloggers. (you can find them all in my blog roll/s to the right)
Going With A National “Brand Name” Tax Firm With Image Advertising!
This is another addition to the series “Mistakes made when choosing a paid tax preparer”.
I’m not going to name names here. But, just about everyone has heard of these brand name tax firms right down the block (no pun intended) in most cities and small towns. They spend millions of dollars every tax season on “brand building awareness” ad campaigns just so you will think of them when it comes time to file your taxes.
The problem is, a “brand name” never prepared anyone’s taxes – people do! So you can have all the famous names, fancy Super Bowl ads and catchy slogans, but when push comes to shove, it is a real person helping you. And behind that one tax preparer, there should be other people who do “return reviews” – and, a manager who is held accountable for quality work — and a support staff to proactively trouble shoot any issue that might arise – and on and on.
Getting a quality tax service from a reputable tax business has very little to do with the award winning promotion, and everything to do with the quality of the tax preparer and the organization to back him or her up. Outstanding personal service just because some smiling face says it on the TV. . .
. . . not a chance!
Better listen to what other taxpayers like you are saying. Have they already experienced that particular tax firm’s services in the past and can testify to this effect? If so, that has more credibility than some high paid ad agency putting together some commercial on Madison Avenue. (Hearing it from the “horse’s mouth” so-to-speak is better. My whole business is based on this.)
If you can listen to what other real people are saying about their tax filing experiences, and you like what they are saying — then by all means, go to that particular tax business and visit with them, if you still like what you hear/see give them a shot at filing your taxes.
So for the record, don’t be “blind” to the fact that fancy ad jingles translate into the high quality tax services. They don’t. To be blunt, usually the more imagery the promotion (nice looking models smiling in the commercial, pretending nothing would ever go wrong with your taxes — none of which ever happens in the real world) … the WORSE OFF your tax service could be. Now, what I just said is not scientifically provable, but if you’ve been around the block enough like I have, you know what I mean.
Again, I want to invite any and all guest post on this subject. I want to hear from all bloggers or just readers with their own input. Let’s see what you see I am missing. If you have some words of wisdom on this subject please let us share it with everyone, if it is something that has already been covered, so what, I am looking for others to tell what they know or have learned about finding a paid preparer. Repetition drives the point home.
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