For most people, their paychecks from work are their financial lifeblood. Receiving such wages is often an essential part of a person's ability to meet the various expenses they incur as a part of everyday life. Thus, one could imagine how alarming a person would find...
Month: January 2015
Tax preparers, part 2: credentials and legal responsibility
In the first part of this post, we began discussing the importance for millions of taxpayers of choosing the right tax preparer. As we noted, a very basic place to start is with making sure that the preparer has a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN).But there...
Paid preparers and tax compliance, part 1: choosing a preparer
The IRS will begin accepting tax returns for the new filing season on January 20, one week from today. It's a time of year when taxpayers across the country are considering what resources they need to comply with a federal tax code that has become notorious for its...
How does divorce affect your taxes? Part 2: property transfers
Let’s continue our discussion of ways in which divorce can affect your taxes. In part one of this two-part post, we explained that even something as seemingly simple as filing status is not always as straightforward as it seems.In this part of the post, we will...
How does divorce affect your taxes? Part 1: filing status
For many years, the divorce rate for first marriages hovered around 50 percent in the U.S. It was as if every marriage were a coin flip.The rate has declined somewhat now, to around 40 percent. But this still means a lot of people end up getting divorced, raising...