Tax service in liquor store sure makes toasting the end of tax season easy
IRS to e-filers: Slow down!

What tax terms are accountants --
and you! -- searching for?

The recent purchase of The Huffington Post by AOL prompted renewed attention to online searching.

While much of the world is looking for celebrity-focused material or directions or a movie review (two out of three of those are me!), accountants have much more specific inquiries during tax-filing season.

Intuit, the maker of a variety of tax software, took a look last month via its ProLine Tax Research at the most-sought-after tax research terms that accountants were plugging into their computers.

The results, compiled between Jan. 20 and Jan. 26, are displayed in the keyword cloud image below. The larger the word or phrase, the more times people searched for it.

Tax keyword search Intuit Proline
The size of terms such as "section 179," "bonus depreciaion" and "health insurance credit" indicate that a lot of accountants have been working early this filing season on business returns.

The large "earned income credit," its smaller acronyms "eic" and "eic table" seem to show that folks who didn't make much last year got their tax paperwork into their tax pro early in 2011, perhaps hoping to get a refund sooner.

On the other end of the income scale, we have a fairly sizeable "gift exclusion" search. Folks were able to give up to $13,000 last year to as many individuals as they wished (and that amount is the same for 2011) without worrying about tax implications.

The keyword cloud also offers some insight into personal relationships. I'm looking at the terms "alimony," "married filing separately," "qualifying relative" and "head of household."

What tax terms have you been looking for? Are your searches pretty much the same as the accountants, or somewhat different?

Drop me a note in the comments section. If I've blogged about your search before, I'll send you the link.

And if I've overlooked a tax topic you're interested in, then that's good to know for future posts.

Hat tip: AccountingWeb

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Comments

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Kay

Wow, you have some interesting client scenarios! As for F1 here, cleared the land but fighting over whether F1 or local taxpayers and/or visitors via a hotel tax will pay for infrastructure upgrades around the proposed track. Tick tock, tick tock; As much as I'd like to see a race in my figurative backyard, I'm still not convinced this will happen ...

Elizabeth R EA

This is what I have been googling besides forms in general:

1. Kiddie Tax. I have a minor who has enough interest income to normally trigger Kiddie Tax. However, she is living in foster care as placed by the State but she has a seperate court appointed Guardian of the Person and Estate (an attorney). She will likely be claimed by the foster parents. I have been trying to decide if she is truly subject to kiddie tax since the foster parents truly have no access to this money.

2. I have a 17 year old student who is also a nanny. I can see where she is not subject to SE tax on that income but a, trying to figure out what needs to be written on line 7 next to wages to explain it since she has received a 1099.

3. Vacation ideas.

4. Formula 1 in Austin, have they broken ground yet?

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