Credits are extended into 2011, but aren’t as much of an incentive.
Forget holiday door-buster sales. For big savings, some homeowners are actually buying themselves new doors for Christmas this year, in time to claim the government’s tax credit for home energy efficiency on their income taxes.
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/111656/credits-for-energy-upgrades-reduced?mod=realestate-homeimprove
Here are 12 hot spots on your return that can raise the chances of scrutiny by the IRS.
1. Failure to report all taxable income. …………
2. Returns claiming the home-buyer credit. …………
3. Claiming large charitable deductions. …………
4. Home office deduction. …………
5. Business meals, travel and entertainment. …………
6. Claiming 100% business use of vehicle. …………
7. Claiming a loss for a hobby activity. …………
8. Cash businesses. …………
9. Failure to report a foreign bank account……………
10. Engaging in currency transactions. …………
11. Math errors. …………
12. Taking higher-than-average deductions. …………
WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service is making it a bit riskier to cheat on your taxes.
The tax agency increased the number of returns it audited by nearly 11 percent this year, statistics released Wednesday show. Wealthy taxpayers and big businesses were most likely to be targeted.
The IRS also stepped up audits of charities and other tax-exempt organizations. story
Here are four of the most important changes to know about as you prepare your 2010 return. link
Adjust your tax withholding now to boost your take-home pay or to avoid underpayment penalties when you file your 2010 tax return.
Your old tax returns still have value.
Small-business owners looking for tax relief would be wise to review the past years’ filings, for a number of reasons. For one, there may be opportunities to amend your returns to receive tax refunds, which could provide some much-needed cash. And for another, old filings can remind you of carryovers and other deductions that you can plan to take this tax year.
Call us now for a free review of your last 3 tax filings.
by Mary Beth Franklin, Senior Editor, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance
Tuesday, May 18, 2010provided by
Don’t wait until you file your return to find ways to lower your tax bill. These moves will help you save throughout the year.
But keep in mind that an extension to file is not an extension to pay.
As the deadline approaches for filing tax returns, the process of claiming a tax break created by the stimulus package has proved to be more work than millions of people had bargained for.
Any Schedule C listing a loss is audit bait, especially if it looks like you were having a good time.
If, as the following AP excerpt says, the top 10% of earners pay 73% of income taxes, do you think they are rushing out to invest in America ?….expand their businesses & hire people ?…or look for other opportunities ? , P
………It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
“We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing,”……………
Here are 13 changes in the massive overhaul that could impact your tax bill, for better or worse.
The new health care reform law is chock-full of new taxes and tax increases that will affect many individuals and businesses, but it will be years before most of these hikes take a bite out of your — or your company’s — wallet. The law also has tax breaks to help both individuals and small businesses pay for insurance.
e.g:
9. A hike in the 7.5% floor on itemized deductions for medical expenses to 10%, beginning in 2013. ….
10. A new 40% excise tax, beginning in 2018, on high-cost health plans,…
11. A new tax on individuals who don’t obtain coverage…starting at the greater of $95, or 1% of income, in 2014, and rising to the greater of $695, or 2.5% of income, in 2016.
There are a few basic records that everyone should keep, according to the IRS, including documents that provide 
evidence of your income and expenses. In addition, if you own a home or have investments, the IRS recommends that you hang onto related records
provided by
There’s one benefit to having children besides the joy they can bring you: tax breaks.
CCH, a provider of tax information and services, released a list this week of ten ways the tax code benefits parents by helping to defray th e costs of raising and educating children. Here’s the list from CCH
Worried about a tax audit? Maybe you should be. More Americans than ever may be subject to unwanted attention from the Internal Revenue Service this season as the government pumps billions of dollars into tax collection.
LIST: Activities with highest odds of getting audited
MARCH 9-22 ARE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR IN-PERSON APPOINTMENTS. Will post updates if cancellations occur.
Tax law requires individual retirement account holders to begin taking out at least minimum amounts, known as RMDs, from their accounts once they reach age 70½. Technically, that means the IRA money must start coming out in specific increments no later than April 1 following the year you reach that age.
The exact distribution amount changes from year to year. It is calculated by dividing an account’s year-end value by the distribution period determined by the Internal Revenue Service. click here for table
If you’re hoping that tax hikes on the rich will solve America’s debt crisis, you’re overestimating the power of the wealthy.
President Obama’s budget proposal would raise taxes on upper-income earners by $969 billion over the next 10 years, yet the federal debt would continue to explode. To boost government revenues further, he’d raise an additional $122 billion from multinational firms, $90 billion from banks, $37 billion from oil companies, and $24 billion from hedge funds and private-equity firms. All told, that’s nearly $1.2 trillion. And it would barely make a dent. We’d still have huge deficits, and the national debt would keep growing.
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