The First-Time Homebuyer Income Tax Credit has been really popular with lots of folks – and there is still time to take advantage of it. As you may be aware, the name of the credit is misleading – it’s been expanded to include folks who owned a house for a significant period of time and [...]
Posts under ‘2009 tax year’
Social Security Eligibility
In order to be eligible to receive Social Security benefits – retirement, disability, or survivor benefits – a worker must earn eligibility to receive the benefits. The general rule of thumb is that for full benefits, the worker must earn at least 40 quarters of credit within the system.
Social Security Credit
Generally speaking, a quarter of [...]
First Time Homebuyers: No (eFile) Soup For You!
If you’re planning to take advantage of the First-Time Homebuyer’s tax credit or the more recently announced “long-time homeowner new purchaser” credit – you will not be eligible to eFile your tax return when you claim the credit. To find out more about these credits, see the article at this link.
In a move to reduce [...]
Review of 2009 Stats
Ed. Note: taking a breather from our normal business of posting retirement, tax and other personal financial planning topics to report on the blog itself and the statistics we’ve seen in this, the 6th year of publication for the blog. We’ll be back to our regular programming with the next entry. – jb
Over the past [...]
Should You Take or Postpone Your First RMD?
In the first year that you’re required to start taking Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from your IRAs and other retirement plans, you have a decision to make: Should you take the RMD during the first year, or should you delay it to the following year?
The Rule
This decision comes about because of the special rule regarding [...]
11 Ways You Can Fund Your Roth IRA
With due regards to Natalie Choate for putting together this list initially, listed below are the currently-legal methods for funding a Roth IRA account:
Contributions from compensation income. These are your regular annual contributions to the Roth IRA account. You are allowed (in 2009 and 2010) to contribute up to the lesser of your actual earned [...]
Health Savings Accounts – The Basics, Part 2
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In Part 1 of this two-part article, we introduced the concept of the Health Savings Account. In this portion, we’ll talk about some more of the specifics with regard to implementation of the plan, including contribution limits, setting up the plan, and taking distributions.
Contribution Limits on the HSA
The amount that you can contribute to a [...]
The High Deductible Health Plan
In order to use a Health Savings Account (HSA), one of the requirements is that you have a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) in force. A HDHP is simply a special sort of medical insurance policy with some very particular components. Specifically, those components are: a) a higher annual deductible than most typical health plans; [...]
Real Estate Tax Standard Deduction Increase to Expire After 2010
Yet another taxpayer-friendly provision in the tax code that will be expiring at the end of 2010 is the increase in standard deduction for real estate taxes paid. (If you’ve been following these posts, you’ll realize that this is another “stealth increase” in taxes, beginning in 2011.)
In today’s tax law and until you’ve paid your [...]
Open a Roth IRA for Your Child
Here’s a very good idea to consider – if you have a teenager who has a part-time job, rather than putting those earnings solely into a savings account (or worse, a car), open a Roth IRA. The money contributed to this account will mostly be tax free, since the first $5,700 (2009 figures) of earned [...]
