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Thinking of Selling Your Home? Understanding the Home Gain Exclusion: One of the largest tax breaks available to most individuals is the ability to exclude up to $250,000 ($500,000 married) in capital gains on the sale of your personal residence. Making the assumption that this gain exclusion will always keep you safe from tax can be a big mistake. Here is what you need to know. The rule’s basics As

Identity theft PINs are for 2015 not 2014 If you are one of the unfortunate victims of IRS identity theft you will need a one-time PIN to file your tax return. Without this numeric identifier your 2015 tax return will be rejected. The IRS issues taxpayer victims this PIN in a written notice. What has happened IRS notices that have this one-time PIN are hitting mailboxes of identity theft victims

For those who qualify, a married couple can exclude up to $500,000 ($250,000 for unmarried taxpayers) in capital gains from the sale of your principal residence. This exclusion can be taken once every two years as long as you meet a two-years out of five residency and ownership test before you sell the property. What you need to know Often tax planning is required to ensure you maximize this tax

Sometimes tax laws create a natural conflict of interest among taxpayers. Establishing property values in an estate after someone dies is an area that creates this conflict. A new tax law is now in place to address this problem. Here is what you need to know. The problem Estate goal: Value property as low as possible. Estates want to value property as low as possible to lower possible estate taxes.

No one likes the stress involved when your tax return is under the audit spotlight. Here are some ideas to avoid some of the more common audit triggers. Report everything that has an informational tax return. If you are like most Americans, you will receive numerous 1099’s, W-2’s, and 1095-A’s in the mail. The IRS receives them too. If your tax return does not meet or exceed this reported income

If you don’t receive a W-2 or 1099, is this a defense to protect yourself from not reporting the income during an audit? In short, the answer is no. You are required to report your income whether your employer or customer filed the correct form or not. So what can you do to ensure you do not find an audit surprise in your future due to a simple omission of

Some of these items may surprise you. There are a number of areas in the tax code that cause confusion as to the taxability of money received. Here are some of the most common areas of confusion. Alimony. Alimony is taxable to the person who receives it and deductible to the person who pays it. Special rules apply. Make sure you have proper documentation as part of a divorce decree