Tips for tax returns
Filing your taxes may not be your favorite past time, but they don't have to be hard. With the right tools, they don't have to be that thing that you dread doing every year.
How to Pay Zero Income Taxes in Retirement With Mixed IRAs
How about another mental exercise on taxes? I usually enjoy Christine Benzs articles on Morningstar, and When Taxes Collide With Your Asset Allocation was no exception. She presents the following scenario: Lets say a 65-year-old woman is prepping her portfolio for retirement. Her assets are ultra-streamlined, with a $500,000 Roth IRA account containing stocks and $500,000 in a traditional IRA port ... ...
LendingClub and Prosper Tax Forms: 1099-OID, 1099-B, and 1099-MISC
Ive gotten a few tax-filing questions regarding P2P lenders Prosper Lending and Lending Club. I finally got around to starting my taxes for the year as a results of my P2P Lending Experiment, and below are my notes. ...
Free State Income Tax E-File Options For All 50 States
Completely updated in 2013 for Tax Year 2012 returns. ...
Infographic: Where Did Your Tax Dollars Go?
Tax Day has come and gone (unless you filed an extension). Recently, there was a competition to see who could best create data visualizations that would make it easier for U.S. citizens to understand how the government spends our tax money. Im guessing that most people really dont know, including myself. ...
U.S. Government Debt, Income, and Expenses as Percentage of GDP
There was plenty of discussion on simplifying the US budget to household-sized numbers, and I have nothing to add, because I have zero interest in being an economist. Heres one more attempt at sharing some digestible information. An interesting site called Department of Numbers has collated numbers from government sources like the Treasury and put them together nicely into a series of charts. ...
Your Job Search Expenses May Be Tax-Deductible
Heres a friendly reminder for those on the hunt for a new job. Many job-search expenses may be tax-deductible, so knowing the rules can save you money at tax time. As you might expect from the IRS, the rules arent straightforward: You have to be looking for a new job in your present occupation, even if you never get one. ...
How To Find Amount and Date of Past Roth IRA Contributions?
Heres a reader question about tracking Roth IRA contributions is previous years (slightly paraphrased for clarity) that I answered to the best of my ability, but perhaps there is a better solution out there. I am looking to make a withdraw of my Roth IRA contribution that I made prior to 5 years to avoid taxes and penalties. ...
Undo a Roth IRA Conversion For Profit - Tips & Tricks
Did you know that if you do a Traditional to Roth IRA conversion, that you can undo it? This do-over process is called recharacterization, and can come in very handy if the value of your investments drop significantly after your conversion since you owe income taxes based on the value of the IRA at the time of conversion. With the recent market volatility, this may apply to many investors as it di ... ...
Active Mutual Funds, Passive ETFs, & Tax Efficiency
When looking at your investment returns, its important to calculate your return after the impact of taxes and expenses (management fees, commissions, bid/ask spreads). That number is what you really end up with, but its never shown on any year-end statements. ...
Non-Deductible IRA Contribution & Roth IRA Conversion Rules
Mrs. MMB and I both contributed $5,000 each to a non-deductible Traditional IRA again for the 2012 tax year this week, with the intention of converting it into a Roth IRA in the future. ...
LendingClub 1099 Forms and Tax Reporting Questions
If youre a newer investor in Lending Club P2P notes, you may be wondering how to handle your investments at tax time. ...
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About the author:
I love to help people improve their lives. I always try to find the right techniques to make life easier, the right products to make tasks faster so that I can be more productive, and spend more time with my 8 month old daughter and my husband. Hopefully some of the things that I have found can help you in your life and home as well. ~ Brianna Lane