Interest rates at favorable levels and a good selection of homes provide an opportunity for buyers. Here are a few things for buyers to keep in mind:
1. Know what you can afford before you fall in love with your dream home.
2. Consider additional expenses that come with owning a home like property tax, insurance, and repairs.
3. Be flexible on the little things. It would be wonderful to find a home with everything you want, but those are hard to come by – distinguish nice-to-haves and must-haves early.
4. Have imagination and look beyond paint colors, wallpaper, or other easy and affordable things you can change.
5. Don’t compromise on the big things, such as enough bedrooms to accommodate additions to the family or space for an office if you work from home.
6. Always inspect even if the surface looks great; it’s important to know if anything major is wrong and what it will cost to fix.
7. Think about the future in regard to the neighborhoods, surroundings, schools, and developments.
If you have any questions feel free to call. If you are interested in one of our First Time Home Buyer Seminars, check the NFS Events page to find out when our next FREE seminar is
With tax season ramping up, tax scams are on the rise. Scams aren’t limited to in person scams; online scammers are in on the action, too. The latest tax-related scams to make the rounds might have landed in your inbox as early as last month but they’re still going strong; I received three just this morning.
The emails claim to be from Intuit (specifically security@intuit.com) with a subject header that says something like “Urgent update of tax information is requested” or “Tax information required within 30 days.” It may look like this:
In case you can’t make out the text, it says:
Dear Account Holder, In our continuing effort to guarantee that exact data is being sustained on our systems, as well as to provide you better quality of service; INTUIT INC. has participated in the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] Name and TIN Matching Program. We have discovered, that your name and/or Taxpayer Identification Number, that is stated on your account does not correspond to the data on file with the Social Security Administration. In order to check the data on your account, please click here. Regards,INTUIT INC. Corporate Headquarters2632 Marine WayMountain View, CA 94043
There are a few variations on this theme but largely, the gist is that they want you to confirm your tax identification number. Don’t. Don’t click on any links and don’t give out your personal information. The link likely contains a virus that could infect your computer or direct you to a site in order to steal your identity or otherwise access your financial information.
The emails that came my way were from an address in Poland marked as “an abusable web server” by my spam filter. The address was also flagged by Barracuda Reputation System (a real-time database of IP addresses) as having a “poor” reputation and is listed on the Barracuda Reputation Block List, a free DNSBL of IP addresses known to send spam.
If you get one of these, best to delete it. If you’re not sure, you can forward any suspicious emails purporting to be from Intuit to the company directly via spoof@intuit.com.
(Author’s update: I contacted the folks at Intuit who advised that you can find out more about these scams through their corporate security web site, security.intuit.com. Additionally, you can read more about a similar scam in January scam here.)
Many people may not realize the Social Security benefits they received in 2011 may be taxable. All Social Security recipients should receive a Form SSA-1099 from the Social Security Administration which shows the total amount of their benefits. You can use this information to help you determine if your benefits are taxable. Here are seven tips from the IRS to help you:
1. How much – if any – of your Social Security benefits are taxable depends on your total income and marital status.
2. Generally, if Social Security benefits were your only income for 2011, your benefits are not taxable and you probably do not need to file a federal income tax return.
3. If you received income from other sources, your benefits will not be taxed unless your modified adjusted gross income is more than the base amount for your filing status (see below).
4. Your taxable benefits and modified adjusted gross income are figured on a worksheet in the Form 1040A or Form 1040 Instruction booklet. Your tax software program will also figure this for you.
5. You can do the following quick computation to determine whether some of your benefits may be taxable:
First, add one-half of the total Social Security benefits you received to all your other income, including any tax-exempt interest and other exclusions from income.
Then, compare this total to the base amount for your filing status. If the total is more than your base amount, some of your benefits may be taxable.
6. The 2011 base amounts are:
$32,000 for married couples filing jointly.
$25,000 for single, head of household, qualifying widow/widower with a dependent child, or married individuals filing separately who did not live with their spouse at any time during the year.
$0 for married persons filing separately who lived together during the year.
7. For additional information on the taxability of Social Security benefits, see IRS Publication 915, Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits. You can get a copy of Publication 915 at www.irs.gov or by calling 800-TAX-FORM (800-829-3676).
Links:
Publication 915, Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits
Congress is still currently debating the extension of the two-month payroll tax cut which will expire at the end of February. Disagreements over how to pay for the tax break (scored at some $170B) have hindered lawmakers’ efforts to extend the break through the end of 2012, notwithstanding the fact that both sides of the aisle are, in principle, in support of the break.
House and Senate conferees met publicly this week to hash out their differences. E@lert has some observations: first, we have the possibility of yet another short-term extension of the payroll tax cut. Out here in the real world, we all know that would be a nightmare, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. The second observation is that there has been some discussion of including the general tax extenders on this bill. This would be a relief to all, businesses and individuals alike.
Now just because taking care of the general tax extenders (e.g., the AMT patch, the R&D credit, bonus depreciation, above the line deductibility of teachers’ expenses, etc.) is a good idea, and just because Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) stated that the fact Congress allows these extenders to expire each year is an “embarrassment,” it doesn’t mean that’s where our friends in Congress will land. In recent rprivate conversations with lawmakers, NAEA’s GR team has divined that the odds of including the general tax extenders are not great.
Bottom line: we should see some sort of payroll tax break extension, most likely through the end of the year, by the end of February. We may see some portion of the general tax extenders included in the package (though the odds are iffy on this. If we don’t see the general extenders in this bill, we probably won’t see any action on them until after the November election (during the lame duck session, which one legislator confided to us, “would suck”).
President Barack Obama has preached that all Americans should pay their fair share in taxes, but a government report finds that tens of thousands of federal employees — from staffers in Congress to federal agencies and even Obama’s executive office — collectively owe the government billions in back taxes.
Data from the Internal Revenue Service found that more than 279,000 federal employees and retirees owed $3.4 billion in back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2010.
The data showed that 467 employees of the House of Representatives, or about 4.2 percent of the workforce, owed more than $8.5 million. In the Senate, 217 employees, or about 3 percent of the workforce, owed $2.13 million.
Obama’s staff was not immune, either, with 36 people in Obama’s executive office of nearly 1,800 workers — about 2 percent — owing the government $833,970 in back taxes.
Obama used part of his State of the Union address Tuesday night to promote economic fairness, arguing for changes in the tax code that would create a minimum tax rate of at least 30 percent on anyone making more than $1 million. The finances of one of his chief Republican rivals, Mitt Romney, has been scrutinized because he, like many millionaires, pays a lower rate because most of his income came from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.
The IRS report attracted the attention of Republicans, who said it undercut the president’s argument on taxes. “If Obama wants people to pay their ‘fair share,’ perhaps he should start with his own staff,” tweeted Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.
White House officials noted that the delinquency rate among executive office staff had fallen from nearly 3 percent in 2008. In 2009, 41 employees in the president’s executive office owed about $830,000, representing about 2.3 percent of its workforce.
White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the annual report was released by the IRS because there is a “high standard for government employees.”
“Though the report shows that fewer executive office employees owe taxes than in the last year of the previous administration and we expect all employees to pay their taxes in full, more needs to be done to ensure compliance and the president has asked his team to work on this issue,” Brundage said.
Overall, the total amount owed is down slightly from September 2009, when more than 282,000 federal workers owed $3.3 billion in taxes.
The report does not offer specific explanations for the delinquencies. Many people who owe back taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount when their taxes are due, said IRS spokesman Anthony Burke. Others may be disputing the bill, may have filed jointly with a spouse who owes taxes or may have had their tax bills increased by an audit and cannot pay the higher amount.
The statistics on federal employees do not include those who are on payment plans. The IRS doesn’t provide a comparable delinquency rate for income taxes paid by the public.
Among Cabinet agencies, the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rates, at nearly 4 percent. The Treasury Department had the lowest delinquency rate, at nearly 1 percent.
