Getting mail delivered to your home is convenient. But even individually locked boxes, like these in this community collection area, are not safe from mail thieves. The Internal Revenue Service last week reaffirmed its commitment to modernization, specifically giving taxpayers more digital options, when it announced 24 states will be part of its Direct File program. Direct File is the IRS’ own tax preparation software that eligible taxpayers can use to prepare and electronically file their annual federal tax returns for free. The key for users is free. From the IRS' perspective, a more important part is electronic filing. More... Read more →
Shout Out
A television studio like this one in the CBS Broadcast Center will be the site of next week’s only vice presidential debate. Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance, the two major party vice presidential candidates, will face off on Tuesday night, Oct. 1, for their first formal debate from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. With GOP nominee Donald J. Trump saying it's too late to debate his Democratic counterpart Vice President Kamala Harris a second time, the Walz-Vance encounter likely will be the last major televised debate of this election cycle. Unlike the Harris-Trump debate, the... Read more →
Next year, we go into the final year of the Republican tax reform law's SALT cap. Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 took effect, taxpayers in high income and property tax states and their Capitol Hill reps have been fighting the law's limit on state and local taxes, or SALT, that can be claimed as an itemized federal deduction. Their main argument is that the TCJA's $10,000 cap is too low. From a fiscal perspective, supporters of the cap pointed out that it benefited wealthier taxpayers. Their big SALT claims also cost the U.S. Treasury lots... Read more →
Americans have always been a peripatetic group. And we relocate for many reasons. Jobs are a big move motivator. Some people want to be closer to (or farther from) their families. Weather also prompts people to relocate. So do taxes. “For many years, policymakers, journalists, and taxpayers have debated the role state tax policy plays in individuals’ and businesses’ location decisions,” writes Andrey Yushkov, a Senior Policy Analyst with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation, at the tax policy nonprofit’s website. The Tax Foundation has analyzed annual data about who is moving — and where —... Read more →
The 2024 National Football Season has started. So far, I’m 0-and-2 for the games played before the regular Sunday kickoffs. I’m hoping my Cowboys don’t make it a disappointing threefer. The NFL is the most popular sport in the United States. It’s also a favorite of tax collectors, both the Internal Revenue Service and at the state level. Uncle Sam obviously gets a nice cut of the exorbitant salaries professional football players make. If the team is based in a state that collects individual income tax, so does that state's tax department. But there’s a third tax collection winner, the... Read more →
Photo by Alesia Kozik The 2024 election features a lot of firsts. We’ve seen the first sitting president to withdraw from the race after securing enough delegates to win his party’s nomination. The first woman of color seeking the presidency. The first person convicted of (and facing more) felony charges running against her. It’s also the first presidential race in which crypto currency could play a major role. Blockchain companies have supplied 48 percent of the $248 million of corporate money donated to influence federal elections this cycle, according to research by the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. To be... Read more →
A few years ago, when housing prices here in Austin kept climbing, the hubby and I hired a company to protest our annual real estate appraisal. That assessment is used to calculate just how big our property tax bill will be. Other factors, such as local tax rates and certain exemptions, also come into play. But if your house is deemed to be worth a whole lot of money, and you’re not planning on selling it for or near that amount, then a generous appraisal will cost you property tax dollars. So, we hired a firm with time and experience... Read more →
Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential nominee, revealed some of her economic plans in a speech Friday, Aug. 16, in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Screenshot of X-Twitter video) Vice President Kamala Harris rolled out her presidential campaign’s economic proposals Friday in a roughly half-hour speech in Raleigh, North Carolina. They included a federal ban on alleged corporate price gouging on food products, ways to help people buy their first home, and financial help for families. Much of Harris’ assistance would come from tax breaks, some of them familiar fiscal tools, both enacted or previously proposed by the Biden Administration. New tax... Read more →
The Nov. 5 election results will help put the fate of the Republican tax reform law into sharper focus. Provisions that affect individual taxpayers will end on Dec. 31, 2025. The next Congress and president will decide which ones will stay or go. Regardless of who wins the U.S. presidency this November, the next occupant's first year in (or return to) the Oval Office will be during a potentially tumultuous year for taxes. That’s because 2025 is when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s (TCJA) individual provisions expire. So, Congress will be working to save or ax, depending on party... Read more →
The Senate recessed last week after failing to pass a bipartisan tax bill that the House approved back in January. On Jan. 31, after more than a year of negotiations, the House overwhelmingly approved a tax bill that included some popular business tax breaks and Child Tax Credit (CTC) enhancements. The House's 357-to-70 support of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, plus its bipartisan origin — it was a compromise worked out by Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith of Missouri — seemed to indicate... Read more →
White House Facebook photo Last week was an interesting one politically. President Joe Biden decided to bow out of the 2024 presidential race, tapping his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run in his place. Enthusiasm for Harris has been high, and it looks like she’ll get the official nomination when Democrats gather next month in Chicago for their national convention. As with most second-in-command, Harris has been a behind-the-scenes member of the Biden Administration. She’s now performing more official, and more widely covered, duties, as well as hitting the campaign trail. But that still leaves many of us wanting to... Read more →
With the 2024 presidential convention season underway and election day nearing, Project 2025 has been betting a lot of attention. Donald Trump and his campaign staff have distanced themselves from it. GOP-VP nominee J.D. Vance has close ties to a key group promoting it. Some members of 45's first administration helped write it. But what exactly is Project 2025? The short answer, per its website, is that Project 2025 is a presidential transition project that will "pave the way for an effective conservative Administration." The a 900-plus-page hard-right policy document spells out how it would do that. The conservative Heritage... Read more →
The tax community’s focus this year initially was on what the U.S. Supreme Court would decide in Moore v. United States. That case dealt with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s Mandatory Repatriation Tax on corporations’ foreign earnings. There was concern that if the justices invalidated the tax, which attributes the realized and undistributed income of an American-controlled foreign corporation to the entity’s American shareholders, the entire U.S. tax code could unravel. Those fears were alleviated on June 20 when the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld the repatriation tax. But a new tax worry popped up in... Read more →
Updated NHC Key Messages graphic Sunday, July 7, 2024 NOAA NHC GOES satellite image of Beryl. Click on image for animated loop. Hurricane Beryl, the second named storm of the 2024 hurricane season, already has made meteorological history. Beryl's formation at the end of June made it the earliest hurricane ever in the eastern tropical Atlantic. But wait, there's more. Beryl also became the strongest hurricane on record, a category 4, to have formed in June in the Atlantic Ocean. Beryl's journey over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula took sapped some of its strength, but it's still expected to hit the Texas... Read more →
Photo by Nick Night on Unsplash All taxpayers are supposed to be guaranteed privacy when it comes to their tax information filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately, the IRS’ system is not immune to security breaches. Most of the time, it’s regular taxpayers like you and me whose personal data is of interest to crooks who want it to file fraudulent tax returns. But from 2018 to 2020, an IRS contractor stole years of tax returns and filing information related to thousands of the United States' wealthiest people. The contractor, Charles Littlejohn, then disclosed that tax info to the... Read more →
Unsplash+ in collaboration with Getty Images Tipping for services apparently is misunderstood, which helps explain why it sparks resentment in some customers, including some of my own family members, I’m sad to say. So I thought I give unemotional artificial intelligence a shot at explaining it. Here’s what ChatGPT says about tipping. Tipping for services typically refers to giving an additional amount of money to service providers, such as waitstaff in restaurants, hairdressers, taxi drivers, or hotel staff, as a token of appreciation for their service. Tipping customs vary widely by country and culture, but it's generally seen as a... Read more →
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash Waiting on your Internal Revenue Service tax refund is frustrating. In most instances, though, the issues that slowed the tax refund are resolved and the money is issued in a relatively reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for the hundreds of thousands of filers whose personal information was used by identity thieves trying to intercept the real taxpayers’ refunds. Not only must they go through the process of alerting the IRS of the stolen identity and fraudulent refund claim, their wait for their rightful refunds takes much, much longer. In some... Read more →
CNN/Max In case political news has slipped by you, I’m jealous and sorry to break your bubble. But it’s an extremely consequential election year, so here goes. The first debate between the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential candidates is set for June 27. Social media is abuzz — and aghast and, too often, appalling — with political scoops, insights, and just plain wrong info 24/7. And for all the old-school voters, campaign TV spots are already airing. Meanwhile, both President Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump continue to raise money to pay for, among other things, those pricey television ads.... Read more →
Photo by Chris on Unsplash The tax code is complicated. Even for the most basic situations, there are income levels that determine whether you must file, and if so, what your tax rate is. As your life and finances get more complicated, so do your taxes. That’s why most of us depend on tax software to meet our annual filing needs. Even the tax professionals we turn to for added support go electronic, mostly at the Internal Revenue Service’s insistence. But it never hurts to have a least a rudimentary understanding of our tax system. It is our money that’s... Read more →
Sometimes, you can find what you need online or by calling someone for help. Other times, especially when it comes to taxes, getting the answer in person is more reassuring. That's what IRS Taxpayer Assistance Centers offer, and for the last few years, they've held special no-appointment-needed Saturday openings. The tax agency watchdog looked at how well that's worked. (Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash) A week ago, the Internal Revenue Service was holding its fourth and final walk-in Saturday at select Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs) across the United States and Puerto Rico. The IRS has more than 360 TACs... Read more →