2010 Tax

Electronic Tax Return Filing Options

Archive for the ‘tax forms’ category

FreeTaxUSA is Great for Simplifying Those Confusing Tax Returns

April 10th, 2010

FreeTaxUSA is Great for Simplifying Those Confusing Tax Returns

If you dread tax season for the confusing and time consuming process of filling out income tax forms more than you look forward to the refund, you should try FreeTaxUSA. FreeTaxUSA takes all the confusion and hard work out of the process of filing your income taxes with their simple and effective interview process.

The process that you have to pay for with another service is a very similar process to what you will encounter, for free, with FreeTaxUSA. However you can handle these questions from the convenience of your home and at your leisure. If you get halfway through the process and decide you need a break or for whatever reason feel like coming back to it later, FreeTaxUSA saves all of your information. This way when you sign back in at a later time, you can pick back up right where you left off. This is also true from one year to the next. If all of your personal information such as filing status, address, etc. is the same, you will not have to fill it out again.

FreeTaxUSA does not just handle simplified tax returns. Even if you have complicated tax returns involving marriage or divorce, buying or selling a house, IRAs, Earned Income Tax Credits, or a myriad of other complex tax scenarios, FreeTaxUSA can handle it and make it very simple in the process. The fact that FreeTaxUSA also has computer programs that automatically search for deductions, credits, exemptions, and write offs for you will be very useful for the more complex tax returns. You can be sure FreeTaxUSA will not miss any opportunities to increase your return.

Not only is FreeTaxUSA’s service cheaper (free) and more effective by guaranteeing you will get the largest return possible, but the whole process is made much simpler for you as a customer. The simple interview style questionnaire does all the work for you while you can just sit back and collect the money. Take a break this next tax season and let FreeTaxUSA do all the work of tax returns for you.

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Tax Benefits for Education

February 24th, 2010

Tax Benefits for Education

The IRS has a number of different tax credits that you can take to help pay for college tuition and expenses. The first is the Tuition and Fees deduction. This deduction reduces your taxable income up to $4,000 and is usually taken when a family does not qualify for the other tax credits available.

The American Opportunity Credit, this credit will pay for a student during the first four years of college. The credit was developed last year and expanded the Hope Credit. $1,000 or the $2,500 tax credit is refundable. Therefore, you can receive a refund when you did not owe taxes during the year.

The Lifetime Learning Credit is available to older students including job training classes, undergraduate, and post-graduate coursework. The credit is for $2,000. There is an enhancement of an additional $2,000 if you reside in a Midwest disaster area. One of the fun changes to the tax code congress has given us.

The Hope Credit is for only the first two years of college is phased out after 2008 except for a Midwestern disaster area. Those attending college in this designated area can take up to $3,600 in tax credits to help pay for tuition and fees.

529 College Savings Plans have been expanded to include computer equipment and Internet access. Non of the credits can be claimed at the same time for the same student. And students cannot claim the credits if they are dependents of their parents for the year.

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First Time Home Buyers Credit

February 23rd, 2010

First Time Home Buyers Credit

There are home buyer tax credits available to first time homebuyers and long-term home owners who are moving residences. Some important facts about the credits will help you determine if you are eligible and how much you can claim.

Beginning in February of 2009 up until the end of April 2010, if you enter into a contract to purchase a home in the US the purchase could be qualified for a credit with the IRS. To be a first-time homebuyer, you could not have owned a primary residence for the past three years. This also applies to your spouse.

Long-time homebuyers is a newer category that includes anyone that has lived in the same home for five years that is now purchasing a new primary residence. The credits are different for the two types of homebuyers, $8,000 for first time and $6,500 for long-term.

To claim the tax credit you have to file a paper return and attach the IRS Form 5405 to your return. Some additional documents will also need to be attached to provide proof of your home purchase during the required time period.

For the long-term home buyers, some proof of ownership is also needed. This could include a 1098 mortgage interest statement for the previous 5 years in which you lived in the home you sold. The credit is worth the extra paperwork, so get into contract prior to the deadline and receive a great tax credit on your 2009 tax return.

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What to Do With Your Taxes In Case You Can’t Pay Them?

February 16th, 2010

What to Do With Your Taxes In Case You Can’t Pay Them?

The extension on filing your taxes is almost coming to an end. Is there anything you can do in case you can’t pay your taxes? It is important for you to pay whatever you can and do your return filing by the scheduled date. We discuss some additional steps here which might be helpful for you.

Credit Cards

The taxes can be charged on your MasterCard, American Express card, Discover card, or Visa card. Going in this direction, you can use one out of two sources mentioned below:

Official Payments Corporation

Pay tax by calling 1-800-2PAY-TAX (toll free: 1-800-272-9829)

Visit the web site: www.officialpayments.com

Link2Gov Corporation

Pay tax by calling 1-888-PAY-1040 (toll free: 1-888-729-1040)

Visit the web site: www.pay1040.com

In case you can’t pay using your credit card, then you can make an installment agreement, in which you can pay the balance in the form of monthly installments. There is also the option of reducing your tax amount by participating in a compromise program offered.

Form 9465 needs to be filled and attached with your return filing if you want the installment option of paying your taxes. For total taxes not exceeding $ 25,000 excluding interest and penalties and which can be paid within 5 years, the process of approval has been streamlined by the IRS. The proposed amount of monthly installment and the payment date should be specified correctly beforehand. You also must guarantee that the payments will be made.

For an installment agreement, a fee of $ 43 is charged by the IRS. On unpaid taxes, there will be an interest as well as a late payment charge. Normally 0.5 percent per month on unpaid tax is charged as late payment penalty but it is not fixed. This rate may be reduced to 0.25 percent for any month while your installment agreement is applicable and you file your returns on time taking your extensions into consideration. You may need to pay up to a maximum of 25 percent of penalty for late payment.

If you fail to file your returns by the due date after taking an extension, will result in a late payment charge being levied upon you. This charge is normally around 5 percent of the total unpaid tax per month. You may have to pay a maximum of 25 percent of penalty charges in case of failure to file your returns or pay taxes on time.

Summary

Even if you lack funds, the IRS expects you to adhere to the rules. You should file your returns on time by any means. If you’ve filed, the IRS will take care of the payment issues. You don’t worry. Remember that the majority of Americans face the same problem.

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Income Tax Returns: Top 7 Reasons For Filing Them On Time

February 15th, 2010

Income Tax Returns: Top 7 Reasons For Filing Them On Time

The top 7 reasons why you should not be late to file your income tax returns are discussed here.

(i) To avoid penalties for late filing

Delinquent taxes attract substantial penalties. These are in addition to the interest due for you.

(ii) To receive a better service from the accountant

The accountant will be able to begin your tax preparations sooner, if you can get all your paper work done earlier. Moreover, you can find lot of opportunities to implement strategies for saving on your taxes. But if you are already late, then your accountant won’t be much help to you regarding this. Suppose there are some profits in your corporation subject to huge penalties; in such cases for late filing, the accountant might be hesitant retaining those profits.

(iii) To avoid criminal charges

In cases of not filing tax returns for many years, there may be criminal charges against you including tax evasion.

(iv) To prevent bankruptcy

In general, people who are unable to file tax returns regularly have poor business management. They are not up to date with their own accounting and bookkeeping; they just think that they know their financial position and how they’re performing. It’s the beginning of a financial calamity.

(v) To have a better relation with the tax authorities

The people who continuously file late come into the notice of the department of taxation. Disobedience might lead to audits, forcefully collecting taxes, or other legal activities. Moreover, in case you have a clean history of compliance and cooperation with the income tax department, then at times of need the tax department won’t hesitate to give extraordinary consideration to your matter and provide leniency.

(vi) To obtain finance

If you are unable to show your proper income portfolio, then it becomes difficult for you to obtain financing. The assessment notices provided by the tax department give more assurance to the banks regarding your income claims. Moreover, if you are not filing your present income tax returns, then how is it possible to know about your hidden tax liabilities? What is your own record-keeping state? Without good financial information, how are you running your business? In case you are asking for a loan, the bank might hesitate to offer it under these circumstances.

(vii) To lighten stress and worry

Most people feel guilty about filing the tax returns late. They are actually afraid of getting contacted by the tax authorities, auditing, seizing of properties, criminal prosecution, interests and penalties, etc. Whatever be the actual situation, these worries might worsen the matter. So file your income tax returns in a timely manner and save yourself some unwanted stress and worry.

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The Process of Electronic Tax Preparation and Filing

February 11th, 2010

The Process of Electronic Tax Preparation and Filing

Just when you are faced with the tax season, you may come across the latest editions of popular tax preparation programs claiming to make tax filing as easy as can be for any layman. It is important to know which one is the most suitable for you and which electronic tax filing solutions are the most popular. This write-up provides you with valuable information on tax preparation options and the popularity of electronic tax filing.

What is it that you pay attention to while choosing a tax preparation solution? Beginners should opt for tax software that provides step by step guidance through the digital tax preparation interview and also includes interview topics which would not be difficult too understand or answer.

What makes the tax preparation software so useful is the fact that it allows the user to try out figures and hypothetical situations. Several of these programs are equipped with importing features that provides the scope for importing data from other programs into the tax preparation software directly.

As electronic tax preparation and filing are capable of carrying out extensive calculations and associated automatic checks, it has a negligible error rate, less than 1 percent. This implies that if you use the electronic tax preparation software, you can be almost fully ensure that you will have an error-free and complete tax return.

As high speed internet connections are becoming widespread and internet security is advancing at a tremendous speed, the number of tax preparations being done online is going up. This system of filing has been agreed unanimously to be safe, easy and error-free. With an overwhelming amount of online resources readily available, there is hardly any difference between the capabilities of the taxpayer and a professional.

Whatever it is, this much is certain that electronic tax preparation is the word of the day in terms of efficiency and popularity. It is owing to this popularity and reliability that taxpayers would resort to the use of tax software to file their tax returns. What a lot of taxpayers don’t know is that they can prepare and e-file their taxes every time they access the internet. The IRS Free File program has been designed to help those taxpayers who file their returns independently and still resort to filing paper returns. However, it should be noted that electronic filing is not allowed in the case of filing taxes for previous years.

Online tax filing allows you to prepare and e-file your income tax returns. And the process is wonderfully easy, speedy, error-free and safe, not very different from net banking. It might be a good idea to try out the electronic filing this year if you are willing to give it a shot. Being able to manage and file your taxes would definitely make you feel good and self sufficient.

It is very common for people to be scared of the idea of filing your taxes and you are probably wishing it would be easier this year. It is actually possible, with a fair amount of planning, to make tax preparation much easier and not be faced with any harsh surprises.

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Selecting between Standard & Itemized Deductions

February 9th, 2010

Selecting between Standard & Itemized Deductions

Filing a tax return annually is an important part of your business activity. But as you prepare your tax return, there is one question that may pop up a lot. And that is whether you should itemize your deductions or prefer to go with the standard deduction that the IRS generally provides to its tax payers.

Theoretically tax deductions are considered a very simple component of the tax reporting system. But ask someone who prepares his tax return himself and you will learn it’s not as simple as it is usually considered to be. To add to your worries is the lengthy and complicated tax forms. Keeping those complexities in mind it is often wise to just rely on the standard deduction given by the IRS. Or you could decide to go for itemized deductions. So, it’s important to find which deduction system will work best for you.

The standard deduction does not require any calculations or supporting documents and thus is the easiest way to go. You only need to calculate your annual gross income and then submit the calculated amount for your classification. The amount of taxable income differs based on your filing status. The eligible filing status’ are single, married (filing jointly or separately) or Head of Household. To qualify for head of household you have to be single and the primary or sole source of income for a household that includes qualifying dependants.

People may ridicule your decision to take the standard deduction. The fact is that with some types of tax issues, the standard deduction may not be the most suitable option. For people who have fairly simple financial transactions with a limited number of deductions, the standard deduction is usually the perfect choice. For example, if you are an employee of a company with an income of $50,000, you rent your home and don’t have any major medical bills; you are definitely a person more suited for the standard deduction. And whether an itemized deduction will work for you or not may not be clear to you unless you attempt to itemize your deductions in a rough draft of your tax return.

Itemizing your deductions means categorization of every possible deduction. Itemizing of deductions always works best if your financial transactions involve a significant number and volume of tax deductions. For example, if you own a home which entitles you to deduct your mortgage interest and your medical bills are stupendous, you would certainly be better off if you itemize your deductions. In reality, there is no ideal condition or situation where itemizing your deductions is the only option. The example quoted above aims at giving you an idea of the situation where you can itemize your deduction.

In nutshell, if your financial transactions are simple, the standard deduction may be your best choice while in the case of a complicated financial life, itemizing your deductions may optimize your tax return.

So, when your deductions are figured out, the next thing is to find out the taxable income. In order to get your net taxable income, you will have to subtract these deductions from your adjusted gross income. The tax is then determined using the tax tables.

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2010 Tax

Archive for the ‘tax forms’ category

FreeTaxUSA is Great for Simplifying Those Confusing Tax Returns

FreeTaxUSA is Great for Simplifying Those Confusing Tax Returns

Related Posts:

Tax Benefits for Education

Tax Benefits for Education

Related Posts:

First Time Home Buyers Credit

First Time Home Buyers Credit

Related Posts:

What to Do With Your Taxes In Case You Can’t Pay Them?

What to Do With Your Taxes In Case You Can’t Pay Them?

Credit Cards

Official Payments Corporation

Link2Gov Corporation

Related Posts:

Income Tax Returns: Top 7 Reasons For Filing Them On Time

Income Tax Returns: Top 7 Reasons For Filing Them On Time

Related Posts:

The Process of Electronic Tax Preparation and Filing

The Process of Electronic Tax Preparation and Filing

Related Posts:

Selecting between Standard & Itemized Deductions

Selecting between Standard & Itemized Deductions

Related Posts: