April 17 is the 2007 Tax Filing Deadline

Category: Tax Law and Planning

The IRS announced today that taxpayers will have until Tuesday, April 17, to file their taxes this year. This is because "April 15 falls on a Sunday in 2007, and the following day, Monday, April 16, is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia."

Played the market this year? Can you report it right on your Tax Return?

Category: Tax Law and Planning, Financial Planning

Did you buy, sell, or trade stocks in 2006? Planning on doing it in 2007? Did you remembers that you need to record each and every sale on your income tax return? Many investors expect that their end of year statement from their broker will give them everything they need to file their taxes - this is not necessarily true. Your year end statement will give you the sales price, but will not necessarily provide you with all the other key information necessary to file your return. As an investor, it is your responsibility to know the following for each and every security sold to properly reflect the transaction on your tax return:

• Name of the security
• Your cost basis (ie: what you paid for it, adjusted by splits, etc.)
• What you sold it for
• Date of sale
• Gain or Loss (sales price - adjusted cost basis)

If you were a successful investor in 2006, but didn't track this information well, April 15th may present a headache this year. But luckily, this headache is avoidable in future years if you track your purchases and sales as you make them - then all you need to do is print out the spreadsheet, and voila, taxes done.

Empirically - NJ Property Taxes have Skyrocketed (its not just you)

Category: Tax Law and Planning

From the New Jersey Star Ledger January 7, 2007:

Property taxes balloon despite push to reform: "As lawmakers scrambled to enact a property tax reform plan last year, the problem grew by a record $1.4 billion, a Star-Ledger analysis has found.

Local government agencies hit landowners with a $20.9 billion levy in 2006, of which $15.4 billion was billed to homeowners. That pushed the average residential tax bill up 6.8 percent to $6,170 -- an increase of $390.

In the mid-1990s, the state's property tax levy -- the total amount collected to run local government and schools -- took three years to rise by a similar amount. But with costs increasing and aid from Trenton relatively flat, local officials have passed more than a billion dollars of their costs onto landowners every year since 2002.

The largest increase prior to 2006 was $1.2 billion in 2003."

snip

"In 2000, only six communities had an average property tax bill over $10,000. Now, homeowners in 55 towns can expect to pay five-figures to support schools, police and other local services, according to the analysis."

A proposed solution is: "The short-term fix is a tax credit of up to 20 percent for those earning $100,000 or less, with smaller reductions for those earning between $100,000 and $250,000." However, the dollar limitations on income are likely to mean that those with the 5 figure tax bills will not see any real relief.