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Capital Gains and Losses on Your Tax Return

When you sell things, including stocks, bonds, real estate, collectibles, and other items, you may either gain money or lose money from the original purchase price.  This gain or loss is known as a capital gain or capital loss, and (with some exceptions) you will report these capital gains or losses on your income tax return. Often the gains are afforded special tax rates and treatment, and the losses provide additional benefits as well.  This entire area of tax reporting can be confusing and there are special rules that you need to follow in order to make sure that you report these transactions correctly and pay the appropriate taxes. The IRS recently published their Tax Tip 2013-28, which details Ten Facts about Capital Gains and Losses.  The actual text of the Tip is below: Ten Facts about Capital Gains and Losses The term “capital asset” for tax purposes applies to […]

Tax Bill Higher Than You Expected?

Now that you’ve (hopefully) filed your return for 2010, you may have noticed that the bill was higher than you expected.  This may be due to some subtle changes to the tax law that affected your return for this year.  Listed below are some of the changes that you may have been impacted by: Social Security taxation: Especially if you had unusual income taxed in 2010, such as a Roth Conversion, you could be subject to as much as 85% taxation of your Social Security benefit. Alternative Minimum Tax: If you’ve been impacted by this, not only are your ordinary income tax items taxed at a higher rate, but your capital gains and dividends could be taxed at a rate higher than 15% as well.  This happens for folks with incomes between $150,000 and $439,800 (or $112,500 and $302,300 for singles) as the AMT exemption phaseout occurs. Image via Wikipedia […]