5 Things You Can Learn from Your Tax Return
January 31, 2016
After you file your tax return with the IRS, and before you stick your copy in a box kept in the attic, take the time to look through the results, and learn what you can do to improve your financial situation. Your tax return says a lot about your finances. If you know what to […]
How to Build Tax Diversification into Your Retirement Investments
December 23, 2013
You probably understand the importance of investment diversification – spreading your portfolio across various mutually exclusive asset classes. But when you are investing for your retirement, it’s also important that you build tax diversification into your portfolio as well. This balance is much more important than most retirement investors realize. You can build tax diversification into […]
11 Tax-Deductible Expenses During Business Trips
October 17, 2013
One of the great things about traveling for business is that what you spend, in many cases, is tax deductible. As I write this, I’m on my way to the Financial Blogger Conference (also called FinCon), where I will learn some new things, make a few business deals, and have a great time connecting with people […]
My 3 Biggest Money Mistakes and How You Can Avoid Them
September 20, 2013
Like most of us, I’ve made my share of money mistakes. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to recover from most of them without too much damage to my finances. However, there are a few that still affect my finances years later, even after they’ve been mostly corrected. Here they are including how you […]
Why You Should Be Careful Using Online Tax Advice
March 1, 2013
Now is the time of year when nearly every website and blog on the world wide web is offering income tax advice. With the April 15th filing date approaching fast, it’s easy enough to see why. Everyone is looking for tax advice right now, and the preference is always to get it for free. The […]
Tax Time: What’s Your Filing Status?
February 18, 2013
One of the most basic items you need to tackle at tax time is your filing status. Your filing status dictates your tax bracket, as well as whether or not you are eligible for certain tax deductions and credits that are based on income. Your tax filing status depends on your marriage situation, as well […]
7 Reasons You Need an Accountant for Your Small Business
February 6, 2013
With the various inexpensive tax software packages available today, many people have fired their accountants and are going the do-it-yourself route when it comes to preparing their income taxes. This can be an excellent idea when it comes to individual income taxes. But if you have a small business you could be setting yourself up […]
TurboTax vs H&R Block at Home Feedback
April 18, 2012
Now that the tax deadline has passed and you’ve all (hopefully) paid your taxes, I wanted to share some feedback from a reader who won one of the tax prep software giveaways. One giveaway was for access to TurboTax online and the other was for H&R Block at Home (formerly named TaxCut). Joe was one […]
Why You Hate Doing Your Taxes
March 30, 2012
As part of my TurboTax giveaway I asked you to comment on what part of doing your taxes was the most confusing or frustrating. I was expecting to hear a lot of similar frustrations but you actually had a wide range of things that bugged you about doing your tax return. It does make sense, […]
TurboTax “Under the Hood” Giveaway
March 3, 2012
TurboTax hides a lot of details “under the hood” about tax forms that many of us don’t care to know about. If you’ve used TurboTax to file your taxes for a number of years you might remember that the desktop version of the software had two different modes you could choose between Step-by-Step or Forms mode (you can’t […]