Tax Guru-Ker$tetter Letter

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Virginia Political Shocker: Republicans for High Taxes - We have a classic case of the RINOs versus the true conservatives.

From MSN Money:

Readers love refunds -- but they're wrong - As I've always explained, anyone bragging about getting a huge tax refund is just telling everyone how ignorant they are at handling money.

How many exemptions can you take? - The goal should be a breakeven on your tax return. Use the worksheet on the back of Form W-4 to refigure this any time things change. Contrary to popular belief, there is no maximum number of times you can submit a new W-4 to your employer.

What if you can't pay the IRS? - The worst thing you could do is to hold off sending in a tax return just because you don't have the money to pay it off in full. Besides the fact that the late filing penalties are much higher than the late payment penalties, if you don't file a tax return and show IRS what your actual tax bill is, they will use the information they have (1099s and W-2s) to calculate a much higher tax than even the most incompetent tax preparer would come up with. A tax return is a self defense tool where you have a chance to declare what your actual tax obligations are and prevent IRS from accusing you of owing hundreds of times more than that.

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 3/28/2004 12:23:00 PM Send this post: