Tax return : the basics

The first step in your income tax preparation is to work out your total income. A person’s total income includes many kinds of receipts such as wages, interest, alimony, lottery winnings and many more. It is important to gather all of the appropriate information for any money you have received during the appropriate tax year before you start your income tax preparation. Be extremely thorough in this aspect of your income tax preparation because the financial penalties for not including all forms of income can be severe.

The second step in your income tax preparation process is calculating the amount of deductions that you can apply to your total income. There are two basic categories of deductions to consider Itemized and standard deductions and Adjustments and exemptions. The next stage of your income tax preparation is to subtract your deductions from your total income to calculate your taxable income and look up your taxable income in the table that is supplied with the tax form. This gives you the amount of tax that you need to pay. The final stage of your income tax preparation is to subtract your tax payments, such as employer withholdings, and credits. After you have finished your income tax preparation you will know if your payments and credits exceed the tax required or not.

If you want to ensure that you pay the lowest amount of tax possible you will want to spend a lot of your income tax preparation time working out if you have more itemized deductions than the standard deduction amount. The standard deduction depends on your filing status and is adjusted each year for inflation. For most people the standard deduction is greater than the total of their itemized deduction but it is still worth calculating an itemized deduction total as part of your income tax preparation. Medical expenses, state and local taxes, mortgage interest and investment expenses are just some of the items that can be included in itemized deductions. Adjustments are deductions you’re allowed to claim and should be assessed very carefully during your income tax preparation. Every taxpayer, and their dependents, also qualifies for a personal exemption and during your income tax preparation ensure that you have included all of your qualifying dependents.

Learn more about Tax Software and gain access to a wide variety of resources at http://www.alltaxsoftware.info You’ll find articles, resources and links to helpful sites.

They say the world works on a concept known as balance. To counterbalance the joys of your honeymoon, you get the misery of filing a joint tax return with your spouse.

If you have recently married, you are hopefully living a blissful life of humor and happiness. The birds are singing, everyday is sunny and so on. Alas, there is one event each year that brings the joy of newlyweds to a screeching halt. That event occurs when you must sit down and file a joint tax return. Somewhere, a divorce attorney is smiling.

Before you and the spouse start shouting at each other, it probably makes sense to figure out how you will file. Essentially, you have two choices. The first is known as married filing jointly and it usually the best way to go. The second is married filing separately and often results in higher taxes being paid. Yes, this all takes into account the “marriage penalty” for taxes. The media has the problems backwards.

There is, however, one instance when going with married filing separately may definitely make sense. The situation occurs where there is a serious imbalance in the earnings of each spouse, to wit, one is making a lot more than the other. Mentioning the issue alone can be a test on a relationship, but taxes are all about saving money. Essentially, the situation boils down to deductions. If you itemize, but lose deductions under the joint filing, it is time to file separately. The only way to tell [groan] is to actually prepare the tax returns for each situation. Hey, nobody said taxes were fun.

If you really want to tackle a tough issue, there is one other time when you should definitely file separately. Since you can’t slap me through the computer, I can tell you it is when your marriage is on the rocks. The reason has to do with joint liability. You and your spouse are jointly liable for all taxes you owe the government. If one of you does not pay, the IRS will look to either of you to get its money. When marriages go bad, the failure to pay taxes is often used by a disgruntled spouse for revenge. While filing separately makes logical sense, marriage problems are not logical. Give a lot of thought to the process before bringing this issue up.

In general, filing jointly is the way to go in most marriages. There are instances that call for filing separately, just be very careful about how you approach them!

Richard A. Chapo is with Business Tax Recovery - providing information on taxes.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows the deduction of the discount points on your income tax return. Discount points which are one of the most important tax deductions to homebuyers are paid upfront to reduce the mortgage payment.

Calculate the Discount Points

Each point equals one percent of the principal. For example, a 2 discount points on $150,000 mortgage comes to $3,000 ($150,000 x 0.02). The Closing Statements shows how much is your discount points. If you do not see discount points, have no fear. Discount points are also called Loan Origination Fees, Maximum Loan Charges, or Loan Discount.

First Time Homebuyer Discount Points

For a first time buyer, IRS allows to claim the full amount of discount points on the year paid. For example, Joe bought his first home on 2005. In his closing statement, the discount points come to $3,000. Joe claims the full amount on Schedule A of his income tax return.

Discount Points on refinance without home improvement

The homeowners claim the full amount of discount points, when the homeowners refinance towards the improvement of the home. Without the home improvement, the homeowners claim the discount points over the life of the mortgage. For example, Joe refinances his home with a lower interest rate on a 25 year mortgage. The closing statement shows $3000 discount points. Joe claims $120 per year ($3,000 / 25 year mortgage).

Discount Points on refinance with home improvement

The discount points which are paid to improve the home is fully tax deductible on the year paid. The rest are claim over the life of the loan. For example, Joe refinances his home to add a swimming pool on a 25 year mortgage. He paid $20,000 to add a swimming pool. The total mortgage comes to $150,000. The closing statement states $3,000 discount points. Joe claims $400 ($20,000 swimming pool / $150,000 principal x $3,000) + $104 per year ([$3,000 discount points - $400 discount points of swimming pool] / 25 year mortgage).

If the homeowner has an outstanding discount points to claim, the homeowner claims the outstanding discount points on the year of refinance. For example, Joe has $2,000 discount points which are not claimed yet. Joe claims a total of $2,504 ($2,000 outstanding discount points + $400 swimming pool discount points + $104 per year discount points).

IRS yearly update

This article may or not contain the most current tax regulations, and laws. You may want to consider checking with your trusted Tax Advisor or IRS.

Dennis Estrada is a webmaster of mortgage calculators website which calculate the monthly payment, bi-weekly payment, affordability, refinance, annual percentage rate, discount points, and more.