Image via Wikipedia When you have a debt canceled, the IRS considers the canceled debt to be be income for you, taxable just like a paycheck. There are cases where you don’t have to include all of it though, and mortgage debt forgiven between 2007 and 2012 may be partly excepted from being included as income. The IRS recently issued their Tax Tip 2012-39, which lists 10 Key Points regarding mortgage debt forgiveness. Below is the actual text of the Tip. Mortgage Debt Forgiveness: 10 Key Points Canceled debt is normally taxable to you, but there are exceptions. One of those exceptions is available to homeowners whose mortgage debt is partly or entirely forgiven during tax years 2007 through 2012. The IRS would like you to know these 10 facts about Mortgage Debt Forgiveness: 1. Normally, debt forgiveness results in taxable income. However, under the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act […]
2009 tax year
A Restriction on the Home Buyer Credit
Here is a case where, even though the IRS documentation did not state it directly, the real rule of the law makes an explicit statement, and therefore the Code is where the final rules are taken from. In this particular case, there is a situation where the home buyer credit is not available: if the home is purchased from a parent or another close relative (and vice versa). And the taxpayer who relied only on an IRS publication found out the hard way that the Internal Revenue Code is the final word on the subject. There was a recent Tax Court case (Nievinski, TC Summary Opinion 2011-10) that challenged the limitation, and the Tax Court ruled in favor of the Service. The argument was that, in a particular document, IRS Publication 4819 “Important Information About the First-Time Homebuyer Credit”, there was no express explanation of this limitation. Image via The […]
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Tax Credits for Home Improvement
There were some changes made to the tax law regarding energy efficient improvements to your home, as a part of the ARRA of 2009. This credit is known as the Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit, and it increased some of the tax credits you could receive for making energy efficient home improvements. The credit is available for improvements made during the calendar years 2009 and 2010 – after that the credit will revert to the old rules (unless another change is made to the law). Here are seven things that the IRS wants you to know about the Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit, as written about in the IRS Summertime Tax Tip 2010-16: The new law increases the credit rate to 30% of the cost of all qualifying improvements and raises the maximum credit limit to $1,500 claimed for 2009 and 2010. The credit applies to improvements such as adding insulation, energy-efficient […]
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Charitable Contributions From Your IRA – 2010 and Beyond
12/19/2010 – with the passage of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the provision for an IRA owner who is at least age 70½ to make a direct charitable contribution of up to $100,000 from his or her IRA has been extended through the end of 2011. Such a direct contribution can be used to satisfy the IRA owner’s Required Minimum Distribution. See the article Charitable Contributions from Your IRA in 2010 and 2011 for more details. Photo by mikebaird
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7 Tips About the First-Time Homebuyer Credit
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 have purchased a new home during the prescribed period as well. Like all tax provisions, this is one that you have to pay particular attention to the details, otherwise you could miss out on the credit. Following are seven facts that the IRS wants you to know about claiming the credit (IRS Tax Tip 2010-27). Seven Important Facts About Claiming the First-Time Homebuyer Credit You must buy – or enter into a binding contract to buy – a principal residence located in the United States on or before April 30, 2010. If you have entered […]
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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 year, this blog has undergone a few major changes… I upgraded the format to WordPress; then added the IRA Owner’s Manual, reorganizing all those IRA posts into a coherent manual; a summary, chapter by chapter, of the seminal book “The Richest Man In Babylon”; plus I started writing more – generally adding a new post every other day. Planned for 2010: more of all the yummy income tax, IRA, and other retirement-related and investment/financial planning articles that you’ve come to expect; likely a Social Security Owner’s Manual and a 401(k) Owner’s Manual (along the […]
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
The latest in our Owner’s Manual series, A 401(k) Owner’s Manual, was published in January 2020 and is available on 
A Medicare Owner’s Manual, is updated with 2020 facts and figures. This manual is available on 
Social Security for the Suddenly Single can be found on Amazon at 
Sterling’s first book, Lose Weight Save Money, can be 
An IRA Owner’s Manual, 2nd Edition is available for purchase on Amazon. Click the link to choose the 
Jim’s book – A Social Security Owner’s Manual, is now available on Amazon. Click this link for the 
And if you’ve come here to learn about queuing waterfowl, I apologize for the confusion. You may want to discuss your question with Lester, my loyal watchduck and self-proclaimed “advisor’s advisor”.