One of the scariest letters you can get is an IRS audit notice. It may be tempting to just not deal with it—but what happens if you ignore it, praying it will go away? It won’t. If you ignore the notice, the IRS could disallow all your tax deductions—and perhaps your dependents. You’ll end up [...]
A CPA recently wrote to TaxMama struggling with a problem. Her client got divorced and paid her ex-husband for half the value of the house he bought before they were married. Now this lady is selling the house. Doesn’t seem like much of a problem, does it? Well, this was a house that the ex-husband had bought [...]
If you have a tax lien, you will have to either pay it off or work with the IRS to have them release it before you can complete a short sale. Q: If my bank approves a short sell for my house but I have a federal tax lien for underpayment of taxes in '08 [...]
Taxes owed when selling a home that is not your primary residence. If you are selling a home that is not your primary residence, you will have to pay taxes if you made a profit. Q: I recently sold a townhouse and was concerned about how much tax I would be responsible for paying. Basically, [...]
After paying taxes to the IRS and your state government, the last thing you want to think about is paying even more taxes. But homeowners across the country are facing increased property taxes as cities and counties are filing for bankruptcy and local governments are looking for ways to raise money. According to a recent Rockefeller Institute report, local [...]
This seems to be my week to work with people needing an offer in compromise (OIC). Why am I bringing up OICs when we plan to talk about estimated taxes? Because in order to cut any deal with the IRS, you must first be in compliance. You must be paying taxes for the current year with either enough money [...]
Moving can be fun—or stressful. Yeah, usually it’s stressful. In fact, during our first few years of marriage, my husband and I moved our residence three times and my office two or three more times. My husband said that if I wanted to move again, I could count him out (or something like that…). But we [...]
In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevya fantasizes about what life would be like if he were a wealthy man. How many times have you thought, “If I had a million bucks, I’d be so happy—and I’d never have financial problems again”? Yet, you watch the news and see all these celebrities and athletes, making fortunes [...]
A long time ago, when I was young and naïve, the tax system was able to shock me. Not anymore. When Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, it eliminated all installment sales. Things immediately got expensive for lot of nice, sweet old men I knew—and lots of others as well. Many people had [...]
Recently, I saw my friend’s bills for installing solar power systems into her home. It cost her about $20,000. Wow! That’s a big chunk of change. I had to wonder if this was really a cost-effective solution. First of all, her cost was reduced by tax credits from both the IRS and the state of [...]
