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  • Tax Rules Differ for Foreign Gamblers
    Special tax rules for nonresident aliens
    I’m a Canadian citizen. I visited the United States last month and won $20,000 at a casino. To my dismay, I left with just $14,000 because $6,000 was withheld for U.S. income taxes. Should I hire a tax professional to prepare a refund claim? If yes, how do you rate my recovery prospects?
  • IRS Limits Deductions for Shareholders' Meetings
    But courts often interpret the law far more liberally
    In 1956, the IRS issued Revenue Ruling 56-11, which bars deductions for travel expenses when stockholders attend meetings merely to get information to help make future investments. Subsequently, however, the IRS yielded on a deduction for expenses incurred by the leader of a stockholders' revolt.
  • Hobbies May Be Serious Business
    Operating in businesslike fashion is key
    The law allows you to offset business losses incurred in the early years of part-time, sideline ventures against salaries from full-time jobs and other sources of income. Failure to deduct such losses means you’re paying more taxes than legally required.
  • As Certain as Death
    Quotations about taxes
    Except for the deadline disadvantaged, most of us have already submitted our 1040 forms. To mark that shared ordeal, here are some quotations about America's tax system that bring to vibrant life a dry subject that has been the source of fierce political contention.
  • OTB Clerk’s Horses Didn’t Win, so IRS Showed Him His Place
    Gambling he wouldn’t get caught
    Mark D. Collins was a compulsive gambler who took a job as a ticket seller at an off-track betting parlor. Once settled in, he decided to work a low-tech scam on OTB. Inevitably, one July day, it all hit the fan.
  • Appeals Court Apologizes for Unrepentant IRS
    An egregious example of bureaucratic imperiousness
    According to a former IRS commissioner, some of the agency’s employees “need more training on how to be courteous.” Unfortunately, the problem is worse; the top brass want their staffers to take no prisoners and, like that Edith Piaf song, have no regrets.
  • More Time to File Form 1040
    And if you owe, it's usually easy to arrange installment payments
    There’s no problem if you need extra time to complete your return or just to avoid the late-filing penalty. It’s easy to obtain a six-month automatic filing extension, moving the deadline back to Friday, October 15.
  • There’s Free Filing Help for Seniors
    Free, but not necessarily perfect
    The Internal Revenue Service sponsors a Tax Counseling for the Elderly program during the filing season. A key participant in this nationwide program is the American Association of Retired Persons, which offers AARP Tax-Aide, a tax assistance and preparation program, at approximately 6,500 sites.
  • Take the Standard Deduction or Itemize?
    There are some add-ons to the standard deduction, but they come with plenty of stipulations
    Many who are about to file returns for 2009 want advice on whether to claim the standard deduction or to itemize outlays like mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Itemizing pays off only when total itemized deductions surpass the standard deduction.
  • Help from the IRS
    Informal IRS publications aren’t authoritative
    Although the IRS guide Your Federal Income Tax can be invaluable, keep in mind that the agency can legally disclaim all responsibility for inaccurate information that its employees give, whether as responses to telephone or walk-in inquiries or that it prints in its publications.
  • Going Green Trims Taxes
    Tips for tax season
    Installing energy-efficient home improvements like windows and doors in your principal residence will qualify you for a tax credit. The credit equals 30% of the cost, capped at a maximum of $1,500. There’s another credit of 30% of the cost of installing renewable-energy improvements like solar water heaters and solar panels.
  • Marriage and Divorce: Savvy Ways for Persons Marrying, Married or Divorcing to Trim Their Taxes to the Legal Minimum
    Help has arrived
    Reading about taxes can be just about as unpleasant as paying them. Marriage and Divorce is a welcome exception. In fact, the New York Times says it’s “One of the best tax books, an excellent source of information. . . . Julian Block writes in such a lively clear style that a reader might never guess that he is a tax lawyer.”
  • Estimated Taxes: Another Deadline Coming Up
    January 15 is a key date for many taxpayers
    Make sure to stay on top of the deadlines for filing federal tax returns and the due dates for making payments. Miss just one, and the IRS might exact a sizable penalty.
  • Year-End Deductible Payments
    The postmark’s the thing
    Contrary to what people scrambling for last-minute breaks prefer to believe, dating your checks "Dec. 31" does not automatically entitle you to claim the expenses for 2009, rather than 2010.
  • Tax-Timing Redemptions of EE Bonds
    Their interest is exempt from state taxes
    Even people with the best-laid plans may overlook perfectly legal ways to diminish, defer, or deep-six taxes. For instance, individuals who buy Series EE savings bonds get to postpone reporting the interest income until cashing in the bonds or the bonds mature.
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