Taxes are what you pay to the federal, state and local governments where you live. Different types of taxes include income taxes, capital gains tax, sales tax, estate tax and real estate taxes such as property tax. Learn how to bequest property and do transactions in a way that will help you pay less taxes and follow the law.
Buying a House After Retirement | Better to Rent or Buy?
Buying a house after retirement can be a good or bad idea. Deciding if it's better to rent or buy a house after retirement requires careful planning. Q: I am a 66-year old single female. I currently rent a home for $875 per month (low for this area because I have been in this location [...]
1031 Exchange Requirements
Do you know the 1031 exchange requirements? It's up to you to know the requirements of a 1031 exchange and have a back-up plan. Q: During the process of completing a 1031 exchange, my mortgage broker told us the day before our 180 day limit for closing on our purchase that our lender didn't approve [...]
Should You Set Up an LLC for Tax Purposes?
Many times when I’m helping new small business owners, they ask me questions about what kind of business entity they should form. Many have heard about a Limited Liability Company (LLC) and want to know more about personal asset protection and the potential to save on taxes. Here’s the real scoop: While you may certainly [...]
Small Business Taxes: What to Know When Hiring Your Children
As a small business owner, hiring your children to work for your business may save you money when filing taxes. It might sound too good to be true, but if you handle the situation properly and file the right paperwork, you may be able to write off nearly half of their wages on your business’s taxes. [...]
Setting Up Payroll For Your Small Business: Things to Know
Setting up payroll for your small business is at once a simple and increasingly complex process. To gain a basic understanding, let’s start with the simple part. If you’re starting up a business, you have to pay your employees, and obviously they will expect their paychecks to be accurate and on time. You will have [...]
How to Avoid Paying Taxes on Forgiven Mortgage Debt
Ilyce Glink explains how to avoid paying taxes on forgiven mortgage debt if you've done a foreclosure or short sale in Real Estate Minutes. If you go into foreclosure or complete a short sale, you could wind up owing tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS on your forgiven debt. But there’s a way [...]
What Kind of Mortgage Can You Afford?
During the housing boom, many homeowners found themselves living beyond their means as easy money skewed expectations of what they could afford. Today, being honest with the realities of the real estate market and mortgage landscape can feel like taking a step backward. So how can homeowners and renters stay within their means and aspire [...]
What’s New with e-Filing—and When Should You Use It?
The other day, Bill Porter of Pride Tax Preparation told me that he was able to electronically file a tax return with attachments. Hip hip hooray! Tax pros have been waiting for this development for a long time. What does this mean for you? It means that you, too, may now e-file with attachments—if your [...]
Filing Taxes: DIY or Hire a Tax Pro?
I started my tax career in a national CPA firm a long time ago. What shocked me about filing taxes with this particular firm was that it was charging $250 to prepare a simple tax return. What’s the big deal? Back then, $250 got you a nice two-bedroom apartment. Today, that same apartment would run [...]
Filing Taxes: Oops! I Made a Mistake!
You think you made a mistake? Let me tell you about the time I made a $90,000 error. It was very embarrassing. This $90,000 was the very first entry I had made into the tax software for the client. When the return was finalized after two months of work, the $90,000 had disappeared. It turned [...]