Have you heard of the “dirty dozen?” Each year, the IRS lists the top 12 recurring federal tax offenses – frauds, cheats, feints and schemes that ethically challenged taxpayers, tax preparers and crooks try to perpetrate. Watch for these scams in all seasons, not just tax season. Identity theft. Casually discarded or displayed personal information…

Will you pay higher taxes in retirement? Do you have a lot of money in a 401(k) or a traditional IRA? If so, you may receive significant retirement income. Those income distributions, however, will be taxed at the usual rate. If you have saved and invested well, you may end up retiring at your current…

GREAT JOBS REPORT MIGHT GIVE FED A SIGNAL Good news on Main Street was not so good for Wall Street. Non-farm employers added 295,000 new workers to payrolls in February, according to the Labor Department; the headline unemployment rate fell to 5.5% while the U-6 rate measuring the unemployed plus underemployed declined to 11.0%. Professional…

There are 17 types of 1099 forms, and you may have received one or more of them in the mail. Here’s a brief rundown of what they report. 1099-A. This form is a consequence of foreclosure or bank repossession of secured real property – “acquisition or abandonment,” in IRS terms. Lenders send it to the…

“How can I avoid the federal gift tax?” If this question is on your mind, you aren’t alone. The good news is that few taxpayers or estates will ever have to pay it. Misconceptions surround this tax. The IRS sets both a yearly gift tax exclusion amount and a lifetime gift tax exemption amount, and…

CPI SHOWS ANNUAL DEFLATION Dipping 0.7% in January, the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index posted a 0.1% annual retreat – its first yearly decline since 2009. As the core CPI rose 0.2% in January and gas prices are moving north, the headline CPI’s stint in deflation territory may be short-lived. The federal government also announced…

How bad is financial illiteracy today? So bad that your children may be at risk of making some serious financial mistakes. Some are finding that talking to children about finances has become less about the nuts and bolts of money and more about putting money’s importance to our daily lives in the correct context. Women…

The IRA that changed the whole retirement savings perspective. Since the Roth IRA was introduced, it has become a fixture in many retirement planning strategies. The key argument for going Roth can be summed up in a sentence: Paying taxes on your retirement contributions today is better than paying taxes on your retirement savings tomorrow.…

Every year, con artists posing as the Internal Revenue Service perpetrate scams on taxpayers. Their weapon is a telephone, and they use it to leave thousands of households poorer. These gambits can seem very convincing, but you need not fall prey to them if you are informed. The IRS will never call you up &…

Is it okay to retire today? Many baby boomers shelved notions of retiring during the past few years. Layoffs, the decline in home values, the crushing bear market of 2007-09 – those memories were just too fresh, and their economic effects were still being felt by many households. In 2015, boomers seem a bit less…