Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 8, 2012, 10:47 pm
  Image by Getty Images via @daylife Twenty-one days. That’s all the time that Congress has to fix the payroll tax before the cuts expire – and that’s only because it’s a leap year. Remember that crazy two month long extension that Congress passed a couple of months ago? The one that Rep...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 8, 2012, 8:49 am
By the time that you read this, I will be at home in NC with my family as my mom gears up for some major surgery. It’s a big deal. I know surgery is always a big deal but this is serious and it’s my mom. If you follow the blog, you know that I talk a lot about my mom. My mom and I are pretty di...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 7, 2012, 12:21 am
Image via Wikipedia Even this Eagles girl had to admit that Super Bowl XLVI lived up to its hype… No wonder a record 166.7 million U.S. viewers tuned in to watch Eli Manning and his New York Giants stun defeat Tom Brady and his New England Patriots – and at halftime, they watched Madonna strut ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 6, 2012, 11:03 pm
Our next tax trivia question is: Congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act (sometimes referred to as BSA or the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act), which included cash reporting requirements and FBAR (Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) rules, in 1970 as the first laws to fight...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 6, 2012, 9:51 am
With tax season ramping up, tax scams are on the rise. Scams aren’t limited to in person scams; online scammers are in on the action, too. The latest tax-related scams to make the rounds might have landed in your inbox as early as last month but they’re still going strong; I received three just ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 5, 2012, 10:15 pm
  Image via Wikipedia Our next tax trivia question is: Taxpayers may indicate on their tax returns that money be given to the Presidential Election Campaign Fun. About how much money was given to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund from 2010 tax returns? For more about the giveaway, includi...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 5, 2012, 11:11 am
  Image via Wikipedia I don’t make a habit of posting about celebrity tax woes. Quite frankly, I don’t get why most taxpayers care if an occasional pop star or movie mogul owes a few thousand dollars to the IRS (other than a little schadenfreude) since most of the time, I tend to believe that...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 3, 2012, 8:38 am
  Internal Revenue Service (Photo credit: functoruser) You can probably guess that I tend to recommend finding a competent, reliable tax professional to help you out come tax time. I’m not too proud to say that I don’t do my own taxes anymore, not because I enjoy paying someone else to do the...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 2, 2012, 10:55 pm
Our next tax trivia question is: The man who is largely responsible for writing the modern day Tax Code, Ward M. Hussey, also drafted language for other major legislation including which large-scale program meant to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II and stop the spread o...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Feb 1, 2012, 11:50 pm
  Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife If you follow the blog regularly, you’ll know that I’m not a fan of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). So maybe it wasn’t so much of a surprise to anyone that I managed to miss Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day at IRS. Yes, there is ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 18, 2012, 11:11 am
  Image via Wikipedia Under growing pressure from other GOP candidates, GOP presidential hopeful and frontrunner Mitt Romney has released some limited information about his finances this week. It turns out *gasp* that Romney has done pretty well for himself over the years. But, really, we already...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 18, 2012, 8:36 am
Quick, close your eyes. Now open them. You know, cause you can’t read the blog with your eyes closed. But remember how it looked. It was dark, right? Unfortunately, due to technical issues, I can’t actually make the site go dark for SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act). But I want you to get the i...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 17, 2012, 8:35 am
  Image via Wikipedia So I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I don’t prepare my own tax returns. Completely true. It is how I stay married. You see, I used to prepare my own returns for my business and for my household. And I did just fine for a bit. But then I had three kids (and a ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 16, 2012, 9:41 am
    Image via Wikipedia Today, we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. To honor the day, I am reposting something that I wrote around this time three years ago. It remains one of my favorite posts. Enjoy! — I’ll be frank. I don’t always love being a lawyer. When I was a littl...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 15, 2012, 5:51 pm
This week, the eyes of the nation turn to South Carolina. No, not for the 37th Annual South Carolina Square and Round Dance Convention (though who among us doesn’t enjoy a good line dance?). They’ll be watching the South Carolina Republican primary, to be held on January 19, 2012. I know what yo...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 14, 2012, 10:29 pm
  As I noted before, in terms of what affects voters the most, I feel strongly that it’s important to understand what it is that each candidate hopes to bring to the table in terms of tax incentives, tax policy and tax proposals. With that in mind, I contacted each of the candidates who has offi...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 13, 2012, 10:37 pm
  Image by AFP via @daylife Form W-2, check. Form 1099-Misc, check. Form 1098, check. Form 1099-K… wait, what? Yep, there’s a new form from the IRS out this year and one might be landing in your mailbox soon. The federal form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third Party Network Payments, will de...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 13, 2012, 11:11 am
Image by x_jamesmorris via Flickr “The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.” – Will Rogers But what if it were easier? And what if the IRS made it nearly impossible to lie? What then? Last year, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman hinted that one way to reduce ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 12, 2012, 6:33 pm
  Image via Wikipedia Dear overeager taxpayers: As an employer and a tax professional, I am asking you in the nicest way possible: please be patient. I know you want to file your tax return already. Apparently you’re one of the lucky folks getting a refund this year. And I know you want your ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Jan 11, 2012, 11:57 pm
With just a few days to go before the IRS starts accept e-filed returns, my inbox is chock full of ask the taxgirl® emails. Here are some things to remember: I get a lot of emails and I read every single one. I’m not ignoring you but you’re also not the only email I’ll get today. So please ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Nov 1, 2011, 7:54 pm
I love Halloween. I do. I love the camp, the excess, the whole over the top vibe. I dress up every year. I make my kids’ costumes for our school parade. I bake ridiculous amounts of cupcakes and make silly snacks that are meant to look gross like hotdogs that look like bloody toes in bandages and...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Nov 1, 2011, 1:35 pm
Panicked about those new form 1099-K (Merchant Card and Third Party Network Payments) requirements? Take a breath. The IRS has already figured out that things aren’t going terribly smoothly and is, as a result, offering “special transitional relief” for taxpayers and service providers. Contra...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Nov 1, 2011, 1:05 pm
  Image by Getty Images via @daylife Ah, insanely crazy debit fees, we hardly knew ye… Earlier this year, Bank of America announced plans to charge debit card customers a $5 monthly fee for simply existing and then tried to pass off the fees as a tax. The backlash was swift and painful. Just ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 30, 2011, 9:37 am
  Image via Wikipedia Those must have been some delicious muffins. Initial reports out of the Department of Justice last month indicated that department officials had doled out $16 per muffin for an Executive Office of Immigration Review conference in Washington, D.C. The revelation raised ire a...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 29, 2011, 7:56 am
Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife I was wrong. There, I said it. I was absolutely convinced that Bank of America‘s plan to charge its own customers fees for using their own debit cards would stick. I was also convinced that Bank of America’s competitors, Chase and Wells Fargo, would jump...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 28, 2011, 12:27 pm
  Image via Wikipedia Riot police have reportedly moved in to calm protestors after rioting broke out inside a metro area over taxes. No, this isn’t Oakland, California. It’s Huzhou, China, a textiles center located in the northern Zhejiang province of eastern China. Earlier this week, a ch...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 27, 2011, 2:55 pm
  Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife Let’s say that you have a shot at your dream job. You’ve done your homework, you’ve put in the hours, you’ve managed to get through the interview. There’s just one more thing: your tax return. Your potential employer has asked to you to...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 26, 2011, 11:44 am
    Image by Walt Stoneburner via Flickr Over the years, I’ve represented a lot of clients. I’ve listened to hours and hours of IRS hold music. And I’ve had a lot of conversations with IRS reps and agents. But last week something happened that truly shocked me: the IRS hung up on m...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 25, 2011, 11:06 pm
Over the weekend, I ran my first ever half marathon. I’m not gonna sit here and say it was easy. It was not. It was hard (note to self: When the web site warns, “Our course is not considered easy and fast,” pay attention.) But I finished in a quite respectable 2:18. So why did I do it? Mostly...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 25, 2011, 10:24 am
Image via Wikipedia And you thought bank fees were bad… There’s a new form on the block, Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third Party Network Payments, making its debut in a few months, just in time for the 2012 filing season. The form is the result of new compliance reporting requirements for c...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 24, 2011, 9:39 am
  Image by twm1340 via Flickr   It’s baaaaack! The IRS has announced that professional tax return preparers can now renew their Preparer Tax Identification Numbers (PTINs) for the 2012 filing season. PTINs must now be renewed annually as part of the IRS’ plan to raise revenue regulate pr...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 22, 2011, 12:45 pm
  Image by Getty Images via @daylife I want to take the high road and just report this story without a wink and an “I told you so” and act like I’m all gracious like that. My brothers would tell you that’s a lie. I’m totally about the “I told you so.” So here: I told you so. Almost...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 21, 2011, 11:31 am
Image via Wikipedia Twenty five years ago, pop singer Michael Jackson was in the news. Big shoulder pads were all the rage. Libya was under siege. Federal spending outpaced revenues. The U.S. was fighting its way out of a recession. And following a round of tax cuts that didn’t live up to expecta...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 20, 2011, 11:08 pm
If you think that the cost of living is increasing, it’s not your imagination. Everything is getting more expensive from gas to milk to peanut butter. Fortunately, that might translate to a drop in your tax bill. The IRS has announced a number of adjustments to tax exemptions and deductions as a r...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 20, 2011, 3:09 pm
  Image via Wikipedia If you read the blog regularly, you probably already know a little bit about my maternal grandmother. If you don’t, let me fill you in… She made the best vegetable soup in the world. She raised eight children, including an invalid son whom she refused to institutionalize...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 19, 2011, 10:39 pm
  Image by eschipul via Flickr Martin Scorsese once said about his work: There’s no such thing as simple. Simple is hard. As taxpayers, that’s what we want, right, simple? I firmly believe that it’s the complexity of the Tax Code that frustrates taxpayers the most – not so much the act...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 18, 2011, 11:52 am
Image by gpoo via Flickr Yesterday marked the month long anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. I realize that there are those that quibble with the dates as the actual protest has been a long time coming but the first organized group of protestors reportedly hit the streets of New York City on Septemb...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 16, 2011, 10:55 am
... ’d rather use a private delivery service, certain services have been designated by ... DHL Express (DHL): DHL Same Day Service. Federal Express (FedEx): FedEx Priority ... Priority, and FedEx International First. United Parcel Service (UPS): UPS Next Day Air ... Express. Check with the i...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 14, 2011, 10:33 am
Image via Wikipedia The line judges may call the shots on the court but it’s clear that Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal is calling the shots off the court. The world’s second-ranked men’s tennis player has announced that he will not play the Queen’s Club tourney next year in Britain, citi...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 13, 2011, 9:13 am
Image via Wikipedia Ah, Lindsay Lohan. Always good for water cooler conversation. According to the gossip site TMZ, Lindsay is facing legal woes again. This time, she allegedly stiffed a limo company, Elite Transportation Limo and Security Services, for services from February 2009 to May 2009. The ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 11, 2011, 11:55 pm
Image by Robert Duncan1 via Flickr You just can’t fault a guy for talking up pizza during a good debate – especially when that guy is former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. Cain grabbed a surprising share of the spotlight in New Hampshire on Tuesday during t...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 9, 2011, 11:23 am
Here we go again. About two weeks ago, I reported that a new version of bogus IRS email was making the rounds with a notice about EINs and Home-care Service Recipients. Now, there’s another version – and this one may trap a few unsuspecting taxpayers since the wording is a bit more sophisticate...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 7, 2011, 11:52 pm
Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife The IRS announced this week that it is changing the filing requirements for tax pros who submit a federal tax return claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Under new proposed regulations, paid tax preparers submitting EITC claims must also fil...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 7, 2011, 9:27 am
Image via Wikipedia So even as I was writing the story about the IRS’ audit of Harborside on yesterday, I couldn’t make sense of it. It felt so heavy handed on the part of the IRS that it had to be part of some bigger mandate – this was no mere tax audit. I got my answer this morning when I r...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 6, 2011, 9:09 pm
Image by Getty Images via @daylife Our culture is fascinated with marijuana. We speak in hushed tones about cocaine and other “hard” drugs but we’re pretty outspoken about marijuana. It’s even become a question bandied about during presidential campaigns with former President Bill Clinton f...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 4, 2011, 11:34 am
Image by Neil T via Flickr I know I’m dating myself but I remember when people used to pay for purchases in cash and occasionally, with checks. Not so much anymore. Now, debit cards are all the rage. You know the ones (of course, since you likely have one). They look and function much like cred...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 4, 2011, 8:50 am
Remember the IRS redesign? Like many others, I was puzzled by the new color combination (blue and orange, really?). As promised, I sent IRS an email asking them why those particular colors. To my surprise, they replied fairly quickly. Perhaps not so surprising, there was no real answer. Instead, I ...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Oct 3, 2011, 3:06 pm
Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr There’s no way round it: Americans are getting fat. According to the CDC, there has been a “dramatic increase in obesity” over the past twenty years. Across the country, about a third of all adults are classified as obese, meaning that they have a Body Ma...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Sep 30, 2011, 11:20 am
Just a few months after I reporting seeing a bump in scam e-mails purporting to from the IRS, a new version is making the rounds. The new version is very similar to the prior version. As before, the header is a variation on Federal Tax payment canceled or Your Federal Tax Transaction. The ones in m...
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Kelly P. posted an article on Tax Girl - Sep 30, 2011, 8:33 am
Image via Wikipedia Last December, Congress pushed through a whole set of changes meant to make them look good on Election Day things easier for taxpayers. One of the changes was the new portability provision which allows spouses to “share” their federal estate tax exclusion amounts with each o...
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