Tax Preparation

Income Tax Due Date: Not What You Think

Did you know your taxes aren’t due on April 15 this year? It’s true. April 15 is a Sunday, so like many banking activities, the due date slides to the next day. That’s not all, though. Because of a special holiday in the District of Columbia - Emancipation Day - April [...]

Tax Preparation: IRS Publications and Services

Whether you’re doing your taxes using tax software or by hand, going to a tax preparation service or having your accountant do them, you may have questions and special situations and not know how to handle them. Luckily, the IRS has a website that offers more information and publications and forms than you [...]

What Is A Tax Attorney?

The importance of utilizing a personal tax attorney is not recognized by most business owners, not the same way they understand the importance of employing a office manager or accountant. With training and education specific to tax law that distinguishes him or her from other lawyers, a tax attorney may represent clients in other areas [...]

Tax Preparation: Pen and Paper

I’ve talked about tax preparation services and tax preparation software, but what if you just want to do it yourself, the old-fashioned way? Used to be, you could get the forms you needed at the library or the Post Office, and fill it out by hand. No more. So where can you [...]

Tax Preparation Services: Is It Worth It To Pay?

You’ve seen or heard the ads for these tax preparation services - you can go in, they’ll walk you through doing your taxes and even give you your refund up front. Sounds like a great deal, right? Well, you know what they say about things that sound too good to be true. [...]

Tax Software: The Easy Way to Prepare Your Own Income Taxes

When I get ready to do my taxes each year, I don’t go to a tax accountant or download forms off the IRS website. Instead, I buy TurboTax and enjoy the pleasure of doing it myself with the ease of not entirely doing it myself.
TurboTax is one tax software package, but there are others. [...]

Tax Preparation: How to Get Your Income Taxes Done

Tax time is looming. You’ve started gathering your papers together. But then what? Well, there are four basic choices, and I’ll give an overview of those here, and talk about them in more detail in later blogs.
Your Accountant
If you have an accountant, you’re probably not bothering to read this blog. [...]

Federal Income Tax: The Democrats’ 100 Hours

You’ve heard about the Democrats’ 100 Hours. But how will it affect your taxes?
Of course, if you’re someone who’s going to benefit from the minimum wage increase the Democrats passed, the income listed on your income taxes will change - it will go up. Yay!
But the most direct effect is if you’re an [...]

Tax Preparation: Get Your Tax Papers Together, Part 2

(This is part 2. Don’t forget to check out part 1, too: Tax Preparation: Get Your Tax Papers Together, Part 1).
Before you start doing your actual taxes, make sure you’ve got everything you need. Even if you decide to use a tax preparer rather than doing them yourself, you’ll still need to do [...]

Phone Bill Tax Credit, One-Time Only

Do you have a phone bill? Chances are, you do - and if you do, you can claim a tax credit on this year’s tax form. Turns out there’s an old tax that we’ve all been paying on our phone bill every month, and the Treasury Department has decided it’s no longer valid. [...]