The IRS has issued a new “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” to highlight the agency’s commitment to providing quality service to taxpayers. The IRS has lost more than $850 million in funding – about 7% – since 2010 and is finding it challenging to “properly serve taxpayers.” The IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the 10-item Bill of Rights is intended as...
Tags: Taxpayer Bill of Rights
Category: Taxes
One of the greatest perks of owning a small business is flexibility. You can set your own hours and salary. You can plot the firm’s trajectory without consulting your boss, upper management, or even corporate policy. But that same flexibility may become a curse if handled unwisely. A small business owner without discipline and a well-thought-out strategy may fall into...
How much money did you save last year? If you didn’t save at least 10% of your earnings, you didn’t save enough. If your savings in 2013 fell short, the only solution is to take charge of your financial future right now and start saving more money. Saving money doesn’t have to be hard work. In fact, many successful savers...
Are you a working parent looking for ways to ease the burden of child care expenses? There are several tax-saving strategies available to you. First, there’s the dependent care tax credit, a direct reduction to your tax liability. The amount of the credit depends on the amount of your child care expenses, your adjusted gross income, and how many children...
Tags: child care
Category: Taxes
Sitting on a piece of investment property that you would like to sell? By structuring the transaction as a tax-deferred exchange, you can delay paying taxes on the full amount of the gain realized. Also known as a “like-kind exchange” or a “1031 exchange,” these transactions are only available for investment or business assets. Certain types of assets don’t qualify...
Tags: Like kind exchange
Category: Taxes
The R&D tax credit can usually be claimed if your business is involved in anything that requires an engineer. This tax credit encourages invention of new products but it also can be applied to companies who spend money to improve production, make things faster or make things cleaner. In other words, if you spend money on figuring out how to...
Tags: R&D Credit
Category: Taxes
Earlier this month, Governor Deval Patrick approved a 2-month long tax amnesty program for the state of Massachusetts. Now dates for the 2014 tax amnesty program have been announced by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. The program runs September 1 through October 31, 2014, and applies to assessments on the books prior to July 1, 2014. Massachusetts taxpayers qualifying for...
Tags: Massachusetts Tax Amnesty
Category: Taxes
Recent job statistics indicate an increase in the number of part-time workers. Many employers are increasingly using part-timers to deal with variations in workload and for short-term projects. As one economist put it, “Companies view labor more as inventory that is to be hired when they need it and let go when they don’t need it.” Part-timers can turn into...
Tags: part time workers
Category: Business