Archives

You’ve seen or heard the ads for these tax preparation services - you can go in, they’ll walk you through doing your taxes and even give you your refund up front. Sounds like a great deal, right? Well, you know what they say about things that sound too good to be true. [...]

When I get ready to do my taxes each year, I don’t go to a tax accountant or download forms off the IRS website. Instead, I buy TurboTax and enjoy the pleasure of doing it myself with the ease of not entirely doing it myself.
TurboTax is one tax software package, but there are others. [...]

Tax time is looming. You’ve started gathering your papers together. But then what? Well, there are four basic choices, and I’ll give an overview of those here, and talk about them in more detail in later blogs.
Your Accountant
If you have an accountant, you’re probably not bothering to read this blog. [...]

You’ve heard about the Democrats’ 100 Hours. But how will it affect your taxes?
Of course, if you’re someone who’s going to benefit from the minimum wage increase the Democrats passed, the income listed on your income taxes will change - it will go up. Yay!
But the most direct effect is if you’re an [...]

(This is part 2. Don’t forget to check out part 1, too: Tax Preparation: Get Your Tax Papers Together, Part 1).
Before you start doing your actual taxes, make sure you’ve got everything you need. Even if you decide to use a tax preparer rather than doing them yourself, you’ll still need to do [...]

Do you have a phone bill? Chances are, you do - and if you do, you can claim a tax credit on this year’s tax form. Turns out there’s an old tax that we’ve all been paying on our phone bill every month, and the Treasury Department has decided it’s no longer valid. [...]

This article examines variations in tax liability and tax rates confronting typical families as income and the number of children change for tax year 2006. Although the examples represent very simple tax situations, they illustrate how hidden taxes and subsidies can make the marginal tax rate an amalgam of different effects.