Tag Archive for tax blogs

Are You Missing Out On The Earned Income Tax Credit?

The EITC is for people who work but have lower incomes. If you qualify, it could be worth up to $6,242 in 2015. So you could pay less federal tax or even get a refund. The credit is a refundable credit, so you can receive the benefits of the credit even if you do not owe any taxes. That’s money you can use to make a difference in your life.

Even though this credit can be worth thousands of dollars to a low-income family, the IRS estimates as many as 25 percent of people who qualify for the credit do not claim it simply because they don’t understand the criteria.

If you qualify for but failed to claim the credit on your return for 2012, 2013 and/or 2014, you can still claim it for those years by filing an amended return or an original return if you have Read More

Written by | Posted in Income Tax • Individual • IRS

Using The Home Sale Gain Exclusion For More Than Just Your Home

With careful planning, and provided the rules are followed, the tax code allows the home sale gain exclusion every two years.

Let’s assume you own a home, perhaps a second (vacation) home, or maybe are even thinking about buying a fixer-upper and flipping it. With careful planning, it is possible to apply the full home sale exclusion to all three of the properties.

Here is how it works. The tax code allows you to exclude up to $250,000 ($500,000 for married couples) of gain from the sale of your primary residence if you have lived in it and owned it for two of the five years immediately preceding Read More

Written by | Posted in Capital Gains • Real Estate • Tax Planning • Tax Provision/Tax Reporting

5 Common Myths About The Dreaded Tax Audit

Filing taxes is punishment enough without the vague threat of an IRS audit looming over our heads. For understandable reasons, the IRS insists on keeping the ins and outs of its auditing process on the murky side. How will you catch the bad guys if you give them the rule book first? But because of the sense of mystery around the process, it’s an area of regulation often misunderstood by taxpayers.

Here are a few common myths about the dreaded tax audit:

Myth #1: Only the wealthy get audited.

While it’s true that big businesses and the uber-rich are often targets of IRS tax probes, that doesn’t necessarily mean low- and middle-income workers are free and clear. The Read More

Written by | Posted in Audit • IRS

8 Facts To Know If You Receive An IRS Letter

The IRS sends millions of letters and notices to taxpayers for a variety of reasons. Many of these letters and notices can be easily dealt with without having to call or visit an IRS office. Here are eight things you should know about if you receive a notice or letter from the IRS.

1. Don’t panic. There are a number of reasons why the IRS might send you a notice. Notices may request payment, notify you of account changes, or request additional information. A notice normally covers a very specific issue about your account or tax return. Most of the time, you can take care of a notice simply by responding to it.

2. Each letter and notice offer specific instructions on what action you need to take. Read More

Written by | Posted in Individual • IRS

Rental Property In Foreign Countries – A Primer!

I keep saying this, “The world is shrinking!”, ad nauseum perhaps, but I just cannot seem to get over that. When I went into the tax profession 15 years ago, I never thought I’d be reading as many tax treaties as I do now! I found out that the US had a Tax Treaty with Ukraine this year! Go figure!

Speaking of a shrinking globe, Inter-Governmental Agreements and Tax Treaties, it was uncanny this tax season, I had more than my share of clients who had a property or two in foreign countries by way of an inheritance or purchase and after having held it for a while as investments, they were now contemplating turning them into rentals.

I had written about owning foreign real estate a few blog-posts ago. You can read Read More

Written by | Posted in International • Real Estate

Tax Professionals Benefit From New Marketing Technology

Watching tax professionals reputations grow with higher visibility and authority in tax services is very exciting. Allow me to share the stories of tax professionals who are utilizing new marketing technology only available on www.taxconnections.com.

We focus on powerful native advertising strategies developed with TaxConnections proprietary software. For those of you who are unfamiliar with native advertising, it is a way to market your tax services without people realizing it is an ad about your tax services. We spent years developing this technology and we are delighted to see our members gaining new clients and authority for their tax expertise every day.  Allow me to introduce some of our members and how they are accelerating their tax reputations. Read More

Written by | Posted in TaxConnections

2015 Is The Year of The Tax Professional – Learn Why

2015 is the “Year of The Tax Professional” for many reasons you will discover as you become more familiar with TaxConnections. As a leading tax media network, TaxConnections is focused on building a media strategy for tax professionals. With more than 4000 members from 75 countries, what has emerged is a community of tax professionals working together to gain higher visibility and leverage on the web as a community banding together. In our case, aggregating tax professionals with a wide range of expertise in cooperation, communication, cross education is better for tax professionals and the taxpayers who want to find them. Taxpayers looking for tax expertise no longer have to research cluttered websites to find the tax expertise they need.  Likewise, tax professionals do not have to pay expensive advertising fees to get noticed as they can now remove themselves from all the Read More

Written by | Posted in TaxConnections

View 1,257 New CPE Courses For Tax Professionals – Enroll In A Course Before December 31st 2014

The word is getting out to tax professionals worldwide! TaxConnections is interviewing and researching the best CPE Providers and Educators to bring them together to one worldwide platform. It takes time to do all of the work required to aggregate continuing professional courses to one site and make the search process easier for tax professionals. Searching through 2000 NASBA providers of CPE is a herculean task but we are up for the job. We are passionate about helping the tax community save time and bring you a wide range of interesting continuing professional education courses.

Behind the scenes at www.taxconnections.com we have many instructors in the que that our community has never had access to prior to now. We are very excited about what is coming for you in tax education through our Tax Education Catalogue. Read More

Written by | Posted in TaxConnections

Potential Tax Changes Affecting Non-Profit Organizations

The Tax Reform Act of 2014 is currently in the House of Representatives. This law is a major reform effort and is almost 1,000 pages long. Congress is expected to take action on this proposal after the November elections. While it is often risky to speculate what changes Congress will enact, this proposal has several significant changes that will affect non-profit organizations. In a previous article (Potential Tax Changes Affecting Charitable Contributions) the proposed changes in regard to charitable contributions was discussed. This article deals with other changes that would affect non-profit organizations.

Excise Taxes

The proposed legislation would levy a one per cent excise tax on net investment income of Read More

Written by | Posted in Non-Profit Tax

What Offshore Delinquent U.S. Individual Filers Need To Know! – Part 4

Is acceptance of a streamlined application automatic for those residing in Canada?

Answer

The primary criteria for acceptance into the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedure (“SFOP”) is that the reason for the non-compliance was due to non-willful conduct and that you meet a non-residency test.

Non-willful conduct requires you to certify on IRS Form 14653. Non-willful conduct is conduct that is due to negligence, inadvertence, or mistake or conduct that is the result of a good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law.

The non-residency requirement is generally met if in any one of the 3 past due years, you Read More

Written by | Posted in Canada • FBAR • OVDP

You Have Foreign Bank Accounts? Questions Your Tax Preparer Should Be Asking!

My expression was a jaw dropping experience when a client of ours revealed their foreign bank account balances a month after we had filed their tax returns. A long lecture about foreign account balances, and an Amended Tax Return followed with required attachments. We quickly realized the need for the right questions in the December Tax Organizer. This was a few years ago and there have been many updates to those questions now.

Unfortunately there are many taxpayers out there who are still unaware of their filing/ reporting requirements. More details on the requirements in my post here. And many a time this is because they have not been educated of their requirements by their tax preparers. Read More

Written by | Posted in FBAR • Individual • IRS • OVDP
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