Prancer says sell appreciated assets; Reindeer Year-end Tax Tip #3
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson discusses fiscal cliff tax complications

Tax identity theft and AMT watch

As 2012 winds down taxpayers need to pay attention to a lot of things. Two year-end issues were the focus last week at my other tax blog.

Bankrate Taxes Blog iconHoliday shopping season is prime identity theft time. But the personal information purloined now could also pose problems at tax-filling season. Some crooks hang onto that purloined financial info obtained now and use it to file a fake tax return in your name the following year.

If that happens, you then get to spend all your free time convincing the Internal Revenue Service that both of you were victims of tax fraud.

Another year-end tax concern is whether Congress will patch the alternative minimum tax, known as the AMT.

If it doesn't, 60 million American taxpayers could be affected. The problem? The AMT, created more than 40 years ago to ensure that wealthy taxpayers paid at least some tax, is not indexed for inflation.

So as taxpayer earnings have increased over the decades, more folks have hit the income level at which this parallel tax applies.

You can always check out my other tax posts over at Bankrate Taxes Blog, usually each Tuesday and Thursday.

If you happen to miss the original posts, check here the following weekend for a summary.

You also might find these items of interest:

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Valorie

Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn't appear. Grrrr... well I'm not writing all that over again. Anyway, just wanted to say fantastic blog!

The comments to this entry are closed.