| Why the HIRE Act Means You Need to Get Caught Up on Your US Taxes Now - Americans Abroad |
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| Written by Harris Smith |
| Tuesday, 08 February 2011 09:21 |
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Tax season is again around the corner and before you run with all your T4s and receipts to your accountant or tax filing service, stop and think: Do I really need it? The answer is: it depends of your tax situation, and by that I mean, It depends on how complicated are the sources of your income and expenses. If you are like most people whose only source of income is a salary income, have some medical expenses and own your home, really you don't need it. Furthermore, even if you run a home based business, or a multilevel marketing business, or if you have a rental income, you don't need it. With the successful development of tax filing software, filing taxes has become easy and accessible to anyone who wants to understand and take ownership of their own tax affairs. I find that filing your income tax return with good a reputable software is no longer rocket science. Tax filing software has become an easy way to prepare your own taxes, allowing you to take advantage of more than 400 deductions, getting the biggest refund, adhering to Canadian income tax law, and being guided step by step through the process. The only thing you need to have is your determination coupled with a computer, and a tax filing software. What is the HIRE Act? The main purpose of the HIRE (Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment) Act, signed into law on March 18 2010, is to stimulate jobs growth by providing payroll tax breaks and incentives to businesses to hire unemployed workers. So, what does this have to do with Americans abroad? To help pay for the costs of the HIRE Act, there have been a number of provisions introduced which mean that Americans who live abroad will face even more scrutiny. The HIRE Act demands that international financial institutions (i.e. banks, brokerage houses, wealth management firms, etc) disclose to the IRS which of their clients are US citizens with accounts with over $50,000 in them. Non-compliance by banks will be costly: banks that do not agree to report these customers are subject to a 30% withholding tax on their US assets. Basically, most of the software available in the market will ask questions at the beginning of the filing process to set up your tax situation and any changes that occurred in your life that can alter your tax situation. Tax filing software is built with the help of a huge team of tax analyst and specialist in Canadian taxes every year ensuring you can maximize your tax refund, and have confidence that all the forms are completed, and filled out correctly. When your return is completed, the software will run a last check on it for accuracy, and provide detailed instructions and options for tax optimization. Why not take advantage of the easy way to prepare your own taxes? Once you try tax preparation software, you'll never fool around, wasting time trying to gather up paper forms, worry about interpreting complex instructions, or paying an expensive tax preparation firm or accountant again. So how can you buy TurboTax Home and Business 2010 at a great price? To get a great deal in buying TurboTax software online, we need to purchase it at a site that will either offer it to us at a discount or sell it to us at a low price. In order to do this, we go to a search engine site and type in our search phrase. Once we get the top search results, we check the sites that are selling it. We go through the sites and check the prices. We then compare the prices that TurboTax is being sold at each site. And finally, we choose a site to buy the software from and buy the software. About the Author: Harris Smith is a personal finance writer interested in home equity line of credit Don't Miss Out! Kindly provided by LJ-Marketing.dk You are welcome to use this article on your own website, if you include the link just before this text. |