Halloween is almost here. Are you still looking for a costume? Here's a suggestion. Go as the Internal Revenue Service. On this annual night of frights, Uncle Sam's tax collector offers plenty of scares. Here are four terrifying tax situations to get you in a Halloween mood. Be afraid, but also be prepared, on this Oct. 31 as well as year-round. 1. Audit: There's no need to build up to this scare, which can occur any time of the year. Fear of an IRS audit is one of the biggest tax terrors for most people, even (or maybe especially) those... Read more →
Paying taxes
I've dealt with bill collectors over the years. Fortunately for me, it's been on behalf of a couple of relatives who found themselves in over their heads financially. Fortunately for my family members, after much — way too much — and often contentious back and forth, we were able to come to a satisfactory resolution. That's why I tend to share former Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson's skepticism about the way that private collection agencies, or PCAs in tax-acronymese, interact with folks who owe taxes. But despite my, Olson's and many others' lingering distrust of these operations, private debt collect is... Read more →
The tax gap is holding as steady as this gap on the old Florida Keys bridge. (Photo by Ewen Roberts via Flickr) We might want to revise Benjamin Franklin's famous tax saying. The new version could read, "In in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and the tax gap." The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that filers should pay and the amount that they actually hand over voluntarily and on time to the Internal Revenue Service. And IRS data continues to show that while tax years come and tax... Read more →
If you read last week's September tax moves post (thanks), you might remember that one of the four suggested actions was to pay your estimated taxes. Not to be a nag, or a reminder as I insist to the hubby, but I'm putting that tax task out there again today. The third installment for the 2019 tax year is due Sept. 16. Yes, that's a day later than normal, but the usual 9/15 due date falls on Sunday. So you get an extra day, next Monday, to either snail mail your 1040-ES voucher and check or money order to the... Read more →
Arizona home to be auctioned to pay federal tax debt. I've seen a lot of estate sale signs lately. Either it's an indication of the changing demographics of my part of Austin or folks are trying to fancy up their garage sales. An estate (or renamed garage) sale basically is a way to dispose of most of an owner's property either because family doesn't want their deceased relative's items or the goods need to be sold to make a move easier. Uncle Sam regularly holds his own versions, but in many instances these government sales are to settle tax debts.... Read more →
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson, shown here in a screen shot from an earlier C-SPAN appearance, takes parting shot at 'woefully inadequate' IRS customer service in her final report to Congress before she retires in July. Nina E. Olson is nothing if not consistent. The problem for taxpayers with this trait is that it means much of the change to and improvement of the Internal Revenue Service that Olson has championed for almost two decades remains unfinished. Olson is the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), at least for another few weeks. She was appointed to the IRS oversight post in... Read more →
June 17 is the deadline this year for the second installment of 2019's estimated taxes. It's just one mid-June deadline that millions of U.S. taxpayers face. June 15 is a major tax deadline. Except for this year. For 2019, June 17 is the next red-letter Tax Day. That's because the 15th falls on Saturday, meaning that the usual due date moves to the next business day. A couple of extra days are nice, especially for folks who like to wait until the last minute. But don't get too comfortable. Here are three tax situations which require millions of taxpayers to... Read more →
Why yes, that is a bill you just got from the Internal Revenue Service. And like all past-due notifications, the sooner you take care of it, the better for you and your bottom line. The IRS is mailing letters or notices, including CP14s and CP501s, to taxpayers who filed their returns on time, but did not pay the tax that was due at that time. The notifications, most of which are going out in June and July, let the recipients know that they have a tax balance due. To minimize the associated non- or underpayment penalties, the IRS recommends that... Read more →
Michael Cohen (left) and Tom Arnold run into each other in New York City in June 2018. (Photo via Tom Arnold on Twitter) Michael Cohen, Donald J. Trump's former attorney and previously self-described fixer, is heading to federal prison in a couple weeks. But in a recent conversation with actor Tom Arnold, Cohen said he didn't commit all of the crimes for which he will do time. Specifically, according to the story on the telephone discussion that the Wall Street Journal broke, Cohen says he's not guilty of tax evasion, one of the charges for which he's going to jail.... Read more →
The time left until Tax Day is tick, tick, ticking away. If you're feeling like silent movie legend Harold Lloyd (pictured above), hanging on by your fingernails as you try to get your tax filing act together, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that there's no way to stop the tax deadline clock. The good news is you can get an extension to file your 1040. By filing for an extension, the Internal Revenue Service will give you six more months, up to Oct. 15, to submit your return. You still have to... Read more →
Tax Day every April is the biggie for individual taxpayers. That's when our annual Form 1040 is due. And yes, I know this year there are two Tax Days, since Patriot Day celebrants in Maine and Massachusetts get until April 17 to send in their federal returns. But most of us must meet the April 15 deadline, so that's what I focus on in this post. Completing a 1040, however, is not the only mid-April tax deadline. It's just one of the 10 tax tasks listed below that many taxpayers also must make by next Monday, April 15. 1. File... Read more →
Nobody likes to owe taxes at filing time. And if you owe too much, you could face added penalties for not having enough money withheld or underpaying estimated taxes throughout the year. But every year, lots of folks find they have to write a check to the U.S. Treasury or set up a payment plan with the Internal Revenue Service. The financial technology company SmartAsset.com recently took a look at where the U.S. taxpayers have the biggest tax bills. High plains tax bills: Sorry, Dakotans. You are the unlucky winners. Yep, residents of both South and North and South Dakota... Read more →
There's better news for taxpayers this week. Internal Revenue Service data for the second week of the 2019 tax filing season shows a slightly larger refund amount. When the IRS released its first-week data, which covered 2018 tax returns filed by Feb. 1, the number of 1040s submitted and processed, as well as the number of refunds and average amount of those fewer checks, were dramatically lower than at the same time last year. That led to much grumbling by filers and arguments among supporters and opponents of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) about how the major tax... Read more →
By now, everyone knows that a lot of taxpayers are getting the worst news ever at filing time. They owe the U.S. Treasury money. We can debate the reasons for the unexpected tax bills ad infinitum. Withholding tables were rejiggered in 2018 following the changes in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Itemized deductions and exemptions were reduced or eliminated by that tax legislation. Taxpayers didn't adjust their withholding to get their paycheck amounts more in line with the new law. The bottom line is that more than the usual number of filers this year are going to have... Read more →
Hello, February! If we ever were in need of your hearts and flowers, it is now. January was tough tax-wise. We had to worry about whether the Internal Revenue Service actually would get filing season open as the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history dragged on. It opened as promised on Jan. 28, but be patient. Plus, we're dealing with our first filing season under the many, many changes brought about by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Yep, we definitely need some tax love. And some tax guidance, whether we're earlier filers awaiting refunds or procrastinators taking... Read more →
The 2019 tax filing season starts on Monday, Jan. 28. That's when the Internal Revenue Service will start accepting and, more importantly, processing tax returns. While there's still some concern as to whether the IRS is up to the job this year since will be operating on half-staff (or fewer, according to reports that many recalled agency employees are skipping [unpaid] work) one thing is certain. We taxpayers have to meet tax deadlines, government shutdown or no government shutdown. So mark your calendars for this year's key filing dates. Jan. 28, 2019: Filing season 2019 begins. If you filed early,... Read more →
Internal Revenue Service offices nationwide, like this one in New York City, are closed due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. (Photo by Matthew Bisanz via Wikipedia Commons) Most of us don't have personal interactions with the Internal Revenue Service. We simply do our taxes every year, send them to the federal tax collector and move on with our lives. It's a different story in many places across the country. Those places have physical IRS offices where friends and family usually go each weekday to do their jobs. They want the government shutdown shut down so they can get back... Read more →
George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States, lying in state at the U.S. Capitol on Monday, Dec. 3. (Screenshot from C-SPAN video.) President George H.W. Bush, who passed away Nov. 30 at age 94 at his Houston home, will be honored today, Wednesday, Dec. 5, at a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral. The current President and First Lady, along with four others commanders-in-chief — the late 43rd president's son George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, along with their wives — are among the dignitaries from around the world who will be... Read more →
Each year, the Internal Revenue Service assesses estimated tax penalties against millions of taxpayers. This added money typically is due the IRS when a taxpayer pays too little total tax during the year. The last time the IRS released complete estimated tax penalty data was three years ago. The federal tax agency said back then that the average estimated tax penalty, which is based on the interest rate charged by the IRS on unpaid tax, was about $130. Back in September 2015, the IRS said it was seeing more taxpayers run into the estimated tax penalty. The number jumped about... Read more →
A few election years ago, Republicans were aghast at the level of takers compared to makers. In case you've forgotten, they were complaining that an increasing number of folks, the so-called takers, were escaping their rightful tax payments and getting government help at the expense of the makers, higher earners who tend to put more tax money into the economy. That's still happening. Now, however, in a wonderful bit of political irony, it's the GOP that's responsible for more U.S. households avoiding tax bills next filing season. Big tax cuts for millions: The latest analysis by the Tax Policy Center... Read more →