incometax

Congressional leaders have been battling over the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts for more than a year. Yet, there's still no word on whether Congress will vote to extend the cuts, allow the cuts to expire or work out some compromise package that might do a little of both. At the center of the tax...

As state income tax revenues creep downward, rates are slowly headed the other way: upward. As fewer taxpayers pay in (due largely in part to heavy unemployment rolls and lower incomes), states are grasping at other sources of revenue. At the top of their lists? Millionaires. As of the end of last...

To help Americans and businesses struggling during this recession, lawmakers signed off on many tax changes that took effect for the 2009 tax season. One of the biggest was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to the Journal of Accountancy. Areas to pay attention to include the...

It's an annual rite of passage that almost every taxpayer goes through: Interpreting the latest and greatest IRS rules. Of course, that leads to lots of tax questions. Luckily, we have the answers. Below tax blogger and attorney Kelly Phillips Erb tackles some of your top tax questions.

Cash is hard to come by these days. So it's not unusual to see barter arrangements between taxpayers. You've probably even done a little of this yourself: You've designed someone's Web site in exchange for "free" handyman services, or you've done someone's taxes in exchange for a new Coach...

No use complaining. It's coming, whether we like it or not: April 15th is on the way. But on the plus side, if you're thinking about your taxes already and not trying to make sense of everything on April 14, then you have some time to ponder what gifts Uncle Sam has come up with to make paying...

If it seems like tax laws are changing every time you time around, it's not your imagination. Over the past eight years, changes to the Tax Code have been made at a rate of more than one a day. According to the office of the National Taxpayer Advocate, there were 500 changes in 2008 alone, many of...

By law, the thresholds for the marginal federal income tax brackets must change each year to keep pace with inflation. For 2009, those brackets are as follows: Taxpayers Filing as Single: 10% on taxable income between $0 and $8,350 15% on taxable income between $8,350 and $33,950; plus...

As you fill out your federal income tax return, even before you report your income, the IRS asks you to list your personal exemptions. It's important not to skip this step -- exemptions reduce your taxable income. For 2009, the personal income tax exemption amount is $3,650. That's per person, not...

As of this morning, the national debt of the US is $12.1 trillion. To put that into context, if you counted $1 every second of every minute, you would have to count for 383,434 years to reach $12.1 trillion. It doesn't look to get any better as Congress just voted in a $447 billion spending bill...