Image via Wikipedia January 1, 2013 update: Passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 has extended the QCD through the end of 2013. See this article for more details. At the end of December, 2011, the provision for Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) expired. That provision allowed the taxpayer age 70½ or older to make direct distributions from an IRA account to a qualified charity, bypassing recognition of the distribution as income. For more information on the expired provision, see the original article about charitable distributions from your IRA. With the expiration of this provision, you can still make charitable contributions of money distributed from your IRA. The difference is that these contributions are no different from a contribution that you’ve made from your savings account or regular income. In order to achieve a tax advantage from the contribution, you will itemize the charitable contribution on your tax return. […]
2012 tax year
2012 MAGI Limits for IRAs – Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Widow(er)
Image by versal.at via Flickr Note: for the purposes of IRA MAGI qualification, a person filing as Married Filing Separately, who did not live with his or her spouse during the tax year, is considered Single and will use the information on that page to determine eligibility. For a Traditional IRA (Filing Status Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Widow(er)): If you are not covered by a retirement plan at your job and your spouse is not covered by a retirement plan, there is no MAGI limitation on your deductible contributions. If you are covered by a retirement plan at work, and your MAGI is $92,000 or less, there is also no limitation on your deductible contributions to a traditional IRA. If you are covered by a retirement plan at your job and your MAGI is more than $92,000 but less than $112,000, you are entitled to a partial deduction, reduced […]
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2012 MAGI Limits – Single or Head of Household
Note: for the purposes of IRA MAGI qualification, a person filing as Married Filing Separately who did not live with his or her spouse during the tax year, is considered Single and will use the information on this page to determine eligibility. For a Traditional IRA (Filing Status Single or Head of Household): If you are not covered by a retirement plan at your job, there is no MAGI limitation on your deductible contributions. If you are covered by a retirement plan at work, if your MAGI is $58,000 or less, there is also no limitation on your deductible contributions to a traditional IRA. If you are covered by a retirement plan at your job and your MAGI is more than $58,000 but less than $68,000, you are entitled to a partial deduction, reduced by 50% for every dollar over the lower limit (or 60% if over age 50), and […]
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2012 IRA MAGI Limits – Married Filing Separately
Image by drcw via Flickr Note: for the purposes of IRA MAGI qualification, a person filing as Married Filing Separately, who did not live with his or her spouse during the tax year, is considered Single and will use the information on that page to determine eligibility. For a Traditional IRA (Filing Status Married Filing Separately): If you are not covered by a retirement plan at your job and your spouse is not covered by a retirement plan, there is no MAGI limitation on your deductible contributions. If you are covered by a retirement plan at your job and your MAGI is less than $10,000, you are entitled to a partial deduction, reduced by 50% for every dollar (or 60% if over age 50), and rounded up to the nearest $10. If the amount works out to less than $200, you are allowed to contribute at least $200. If you […]
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2012 Retirement Plan Limits
Image via Wikipedia The new limits for retirement plans in 2012 have just recently been published. The details of these new limits are below: IRA The contribution limit (and therefore the deductible contribution limit) for a traditional IRA remains the same in 2012 as in 2011 – at $5,000. The catch up provision, available to taxpayers age 50 or better, also remains the same at $1,000. If you’re a Single filer and covered by a retirement plan via an employer, the deductibility phases out when your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) is over $58,000 and phases out completely at an AGI of $68,000. This is an increase of $2,000 over the 2011 phase-out range. If you’re Married and filing jointly and the spouse making the IRA contribution is covered by a workplace retirement plan, the phase-out range is between $92,000 and $112,000, also up from 2011 by $2,000. If you’re not […]
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2012 Income Tax by the Numbers
Recently, the IRS released the updated figures as they apply to 2012 income tax rates and schedules, via Revenue Procedure 2011-52. Below is a summary of the key information from this procedure document. Adoption Assistance The credit for adoption expenses was changed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (and others) such that this credit was increased to $13,170, and the credit became refundable. This provision will expire at the end of calendar year 2011, which will cause the credit to fall back to an amount of $10,000. This amount is then adjusted for inflation, such that the limit for 2012 is $12,650, and remains non-refundable. The limit for adopting a special needs child is the same at $12,650 for 2012. We’ll see if any changes come through to make any changes to the refundability. The modified AGI limits for the phase-out of adoption credit assistance is […]
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