You have two main deduction options when you file, standard or itemizing. This gobbler duo represents that choice, which you make each year, based on which gives you the most beneficial tax result. You can make sure you make the most of your deductions by having a bunching strategy. (Photo by sterlinglanier Lanier on Unsplash) Deductions are one way to trim you tax bill. But since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 essentially doubled the standard deduction amounts, most taxpayers claim that set amount instead of collecting receipts and itemizing. That’s the wisest tax move for most... Read more →
State/Local
Will this higher cost across the country be enough to convince lawmakers to revise the $10,000 state and local tax (SALT) federal tax deduction cap? Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 was enacted, I’d spend this time of year deciding whether to pay our home’s annual property tax bill by Dec. 31 or wait until its due date of Jan. 31 the following year got closer. It wasn’t just a cashflow decision. It also affected our tax filing. Or did, as I noted, before the Republican tax reform bill limited the amount of state and local... Read more →
Last month, the Internal Revenue Service issued its annual inflation adjustments for myriad tax provisions. The new numbers were released before the Nov. 5, so there was a bit of concern that these figures could dramatically change after 2025. The trepidation was based on the expiration at the end of next year of mostly individual tax breaks in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, the signature tax law in Donald J. Trump’s first term. Now, with Trump returning to the Oval Office in January, along with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, there’s a bit more... Read more →
Streaming fans in Louisiana soon could be paying more to watch their favorite shows and movies. This time, though, they can’t blame the services providing the programming. Their ire over more costly entertainment is due to Pelican State lawmakers who now are meeting in a special session to focus on Gov. Jeff Landry has proposed a reworking of Louisiana’s tax structure. More subject to sales tax: Part of the tax overhaul is an expansion of s part of targets subject to Louisiana’s 4.45 percent state sales tax. It would be levied on several digital products and services, including online news... Read more →
Wyoming is not just wide open for these cowboys driving cattle in the state's Upper Green River Valley. It also is the most tax competitive state in the country. (Photo Credit: Theo Stein/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) The Tax Foundation’s annual State Business Tax Climate Index is no more. But if you’re a fan of the tax policy nonprofit’s assessment of the country’s various tax structures, don’t fret. The Tax Foundation has released its State Tax Competitiveness Index, which is the same analysis with a new name. The rebranding, according to the Washington, D.C.-based group, better reflects the original index’s... Read more →
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash The 2024 general election is over. Finally. Now we sort through the results to try to determine how what we did on Nov. 5 will affect us. The election of Donald J. Trump to a second term, along with Republican control of the Senate and likely the House, will likely simplify a lot of federal tax questions in 2025, the final year of many individual Internal Revenue Code provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. But as noted back on Oct. 26, tax questions, not just candidates, also were on ballots.... Read more →
Photo by Brett Jordan Here’s a subject line you never want to see in your email box: There’s a problem with your tax return. But that is what’s happening to some taxpayers. No, it wasn’t from the Internal Revenue Service. Uncle Sam snail mails you a tax notice with questions about your filing. Rather, it was an email from TurboTax to its users with the subject line — CRITICAL NOTICE: Regarding your 2023 TurboTax return And here’s the message — Hi there, We’re contacting you because there might be an issue with the accuracy of your 2023 tax return. Due... Read more →
And the disasters (and tax relief) keep coming. A glacial lake outburst in the Juneau, Alaska, area in August produced flooding in the state capital, prompting a major disaster declaration and a new May 1, 2025, tax deadline. Homes and roads in northern Juneau, Alaska, were inundated on August 8, as flood waters overtopped the banks of the Mendenhall River. The flood was caused by glacial lake outburst from Mendenhall Glacier near the Alaskan state capital. A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) time-lapse video from May 1 to Aug. 7 captures the dramatic rise and fall of water levels in Suicide... Read more →
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash Tuesday, Nov. 5, is election day. The hubby and I already voted, and if you’re like us, you can’t wait for all the politicking to be over. The incessant calls, emails and snail mail material extends beyond the candidates. In several states, and at local levels, too, voters will decide ballot initiatives. So, this weekend’s Saturday Shout Outs go to recent coverage of the referenda, with, of course, a focus on taxes. The first shout goes to Ballotpedia, which reports that 159 statewide ballot measures were certified as of Oct. 24 to appear on... Read more →
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (left) sits on the Lake Erie shore next to the Great Lakes Science Center (right) in Cleveland's North Coast Harbor. (Photo by Rona Proudfoot, CC BY-SA 2.0) For years, Austinites have been the target of the Buckeye State, and I’m not talking college football. A couple of years ago, billboards popped up in the Austin, Texas, metro area suggesting that Ohio had plenty of cool places to live that were less expensive. Now, the Ohio promotions are in television ads. And just as the Lone Star State capital’s annual Austin City Limits (ACL)... Read more →
Update, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024: The Internal Revenue Service today announced disaster tax relief and a Feb. 3, 2025, deadline for individuals and businesses of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in the state of Arizona who were affected by a wildfire that ignited in July. Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash Hurricane Helene, and now Hurricane Milton, and their deadly aftermath have, naturally, garnered most attention. But other parts of the United States also have been hit by disasters. Wildfires erupted on June 22 in parts of Washington state. Less than a month later, on July 10, the lands of... Read more →
Three more states — Alaska, Idaho, and Kansas — will join the Internal Revenue Service’s Direct File next tax season. They join Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, who earlier this year joined the IRS-created-and-operated free online tax preparation and e-filing program. These 12 new Direct File states will double the states where Direct File will be available. A dozen — Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming — were part of the Direct File pilot for the 2024 filing season. Treasury said that... Read more →
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service The people whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Helene obviously are not thinking about taxes. But the Internal Revenue Service has acted to officially ensure that they don’t have to worry about this for a while. The IRS has announced disaster tax relief for all individuals and businesses in seven states that were affected by the deadly hurricane, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend as a category 4 and then proceeded to wreak havoc across the south. Major disaster declarations have been issued by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the... Read more →
Regular readers already know this, but since the college and professional football seasons are underway, and we’re about to head into Major League Baseball’s playoffs, it’s time for a reminder. Any winning sports bets are taxable income at the federal and most state levels. Sports betting’s growth: More of us are pocketing a few extra dollars after the games since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that states can decide whether to allow gambling within their borders. That includes online betting. Currently, 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of sports betting. Twenty-seven of those states... 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 →
It’s not unusual, especially here in Texas, for undocumented workers to be employed in industries that depend on manual labor, such as agriculture or construction. (Photo by Zohair Mirza on Unsplash) “They’re eating the dogs” is now forever part of U.S. presidential campaign lore, for worse or worst since there’s no better take. Following Donald J. Trump’s exclamation of a false social media rumor of pet deaths in Springfield, Ohio, during his Sept. 10 debate last week with Kamala Harris, the municipality about half an hour northeast of Dayton has encountered much unwanted attention. It has included bomb threats to... 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 →
Boo! No, it’s not Halloween yet, but today is just as scary for some. They suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia, the fear of Friday the 13th. Fear also is often associated with taxes. With another tax deadline on Monday — the Sept. 16 due date for the third estimated tax payment of the 2024 tax year — today is a good time to acknowledge, and start to overcome the associated fears of, some scary tax misinformation that just won't go away. Here are 13 tax misperceptions that once you know them and the right tax moves to make, you can become a... Read more →
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk The Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar today announced cities, counties, transit systems, and special purpose districts soon will be getting their share of $1.1 billion in local sales tax allocations for September. That's 6.3 percent more than last September. Sales taxes are one of the three major ways states and the assorted jurisdictions within their borders get revenue. The other two are property taxes, mostly on real estate value, and income earned by individuals and businesses. Since the Lone Star State has no personal income tax, most of us residents are resigned to generally high sales and... Read more →
UPDATE, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024 — Glacial outburst flooding in Alaska in early August means Juneau filers have a May 1, 2025, tax relief deadline for a variety of tax filings and payments, including September's estimated amount. UPDATE, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024 — Deadly Hurricane Helene has changed deadlines for areas in four states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina — that earlier were in Hurricane Debby’s path. Instead of Debby’s Feb. 3, 2025, deadline, affected taxpayers in those states now have a later Helene-prompted deadline of May 1, 2025. UPDATE, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024:The IRS today announced... Read more →