TaxCredit

Nobody likes paying the IRS, and we all wish there were just a few more deductions we could swing without arousing the taxman's ire. And there are: Here are a few deductions that, while they might seem to be a little out of bounds, are totally legal.

There's a popular tax break out there that paid more than 26 million workers a total of nearly $59 billion last year. Yet as many as 1 in 4 of those who qualify for this tax credit failed to claim it, missing out on hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. That break is the earned income tax credit.

For many households, it's a personal fiance dilemma: Should they try to pay down debt first, or build up savings? In the aftermath of the Great Recession, opinions have clearly tipped toward the ditch-your-debt side. But that's not always the right answer.

My initial reaction to the April 2 New York Times piece "The Unpaid Intern, Illegal or Not" was one of confusion. I have done a number of unpaid internships, and never in my right mind believed them to be illegal -- even if at the time I was doing menial tasks. Isn't that the point? To teach you...

The New York Times reports that "After several disastrous months for home sales across the country, when volume dropped by 23%, the pace appears to be picking up again." The reason? The first-time home-buyer tax credit is set to expire on April 30, and people are moving quickly to take advantage....

By now, you've probably heard lots of chatter about the first-time home buyers credit. The tax credit was originally part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and applied only to first-time homebuyers. In 2009, bowing to pressure from the real estate community, Congress passed...

We're having a real winter this year. As opposed to a few winters past, we've already seen several snows and have had the heater cranked up for months. I happen to live in an old house (and by old, I mean about 130 years), so heating it can be a challenge. Our old unit isn't cutting it anymore, and...

Homebuyers did not have to truly be first-timers in order to qualify for the "first time homebuyer" tax credit, expiring Nov. 30; they only had to meet the limitation of not having owned a primary residence for the past three years, with income limits of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for...

According to our friends at the National Association of Realtors, the number of pending home sales jumped up 6.7% in April, the largest monthly gain since 2001. That puts the index 3.2% above its year-ago level, in the latest sign the battered U.S. housing sector is stabilizing. This was also the...

Prospective homebuyers were deeply disappointed when the $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers was removed from the final version of the economic stimulus package and replaced with a much more modest $8,000 tax credit, available only to first-time buyers.But that $15,000 package may not be off the...