The Tax Preparation Blog

Archive for April, 2010

Question: What is the best free income tax (federal and state) preparation service?

I am a single mom, with a disabled child…. I made less than 10,000 last year….. What is the best service to file my taxes with (either online or in person)…. I don’t have money to pay someone to do it for me, and I don’t know which place to trust to do a good job Thank you.

Answer: If you do not have money to pay someone to do them for you, you will need to file your taxes yourself. You can go to www.IRS.gov and see the links to the free filing services. You can also go to your state’s tax department website and do the same.

Liberty Tax CEO Weighs in on Chase Bank’s Exit from Refund Loan Business

As it stands right now, 13,000 mom-and-pop tax preparers will be searching for a loan provider. Liberty Tax Service and H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) are the only national tax companies able to fully service their customers with a refund loan product. (PRWeb Apr 30, 2010) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/20100430/chasebankRAL/prweb3947884.htm

Question: Work experience help?

I’ve been asigned to find work experience for next year, i’ve looked through the internet and yellow pages and came across 6 i am intrested in. Could you please give me a rough outline of what each one does and maybe there salary if possible.

- Bookkeeping Services
- Financial Advisers
- Insolvency Practitioners
- Payroll Services
- Tax Advisers

Also if you could recommend any good charted accountant buisnesses in Bristol that would be great.

Answer: bookkeeping is like accounts payable and accounts receivable, you are balancing the books. basically reconciling transactions or keeping track of what money comes in and what goes out, and making sure that what came in makes sense with what was spent.

financial advisers are basically stock brokers, they help people choose what to invest there money in, from stocks and bonds to money market accounts, and ira’s.

tax advisers obviously help people with their taxes

Consumer rights: Must I pay tax on sale of marital home after split?

My wife and I separated at the beginning of 2008 and I moved into a small flat I had before we got married. We put our house on the market two years ago and it’s taken until last week to sell.

Question: How do countries besides the U.S. handle taxes on gambling winnings?

In the U.S. if you “win” $2,000 on a horse racing bet but it cost you $2,500, the gov’t will record this as $2,000 income, and if you deduct the amount of the wager (you can only deduct enough to show no earnings, not losses), you will have to itemize & can’t use a standard deduction any longer. Do other countries such as Canada, UK, etc view gambling earnings in the same way on taxes? Also for racing wagers, if you win a bet with 300-1 or more odds these become taxable, and anything over $5,000 has 25% taken out by the fed gov’t right away before they pay you. Is anything like this also done in other countries?

Answer: In Australia any winnings whether it be on horse races, lotteries or at casinos are tax exempt.

The only exception is if this is your only source of regular income then you can be classified as a “professional gambler”. Then you pay tax on any winnings just like you do if you earn’t the money at a regular job.

(AFX UK Focus) 2010-04-29 23:15 US fund taxes plunged in ‘09 on prior year losses

BOSTON, April 29 (Reuters) – In addition to strong returns, U.S. mutual fund investors had much lower taxes to celebrate in 2009, according to a report issued on Thursday by Lipper, a Thomson Reuters Corp unit tracking fund performance. Not only were equity funds up 34 percent last year, their best year since 2003, they also capitalized on tax benefits tied to market declines during the fiscal …

Unemployment Funds Going Absolutely Broke

Mozo Launches Australia’s Most Intuitive Online Financial Calculators

Building on its reputation for developing award-winning* online tools, financial comparison website, mozo.com.au, has announced the launch of its range of intuitively designed online financial calculators. (PRWeb May 10, 2010) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/05/prweb3971134.htm

Build Home Solar Power

House Prices: What Next?

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House Session 2010-04-15 (20:08:18-21:15:49)