Taxing thoughts
Some observations from Tax Season '09.
For those who had taken the buyouts from GM and Ford, I wish they had been given better financial advice on the consequences. They took a $45,000
buyout and $9000 was withheld in federal taxes. The kicker is the 1099 has been coded as an early withdrawal subject to a 10% penalty. So if the person didn't roll it over to an IRA and was under the age of 59.5, they're hit with in taxes. I've had two such cases in the past week where one person owed nearly $10K (federal and state) and another about $5K. I hope they didn't spend it all.
The company should rethink its policy of not accepting competitors' coupons. Every tax pro has a "quota" of discounts to use, but I use mine very selectively and am not going to hand out discounts willy-nilly. In one case I did a "dummy" return just to see what the price would be. The man thought $150 was too much and shouldn't have to pay more than $100. I told him I couldn't do that, so he probably went elsewhere. Liberty and Jackson Hewitt have comparable prices, so he might go to one of those "mom and pop" operations that always spring up. (I don't think this man is on-line-savvy.)
Apparently snow is supposed to return tomorrow. Snow-free days were nice while they lasted.
For those who had taken the buyouts from GM and Ford, I wish they had been given better financial advice on the consequences. They took a $45,000
buyout and $9000 was withheld in federal taxes. The kicker is the 1099 has been coded as an early withdrawal subject to a 10% penalty. So if the person didn't roll it over to an IRA and was under the age of 59.5, they're hit with in taxes. I've had two such cases in the past week where one person owed nearly $10K (federal and state) and another about $5K. I hope they didn't spend it all.
The company should rethink its policy of not accepting competitors' coupons. Every tax pro has a "quota" of discounts to use, but I use mine very selectively and am not going to hand out discounts willy-nilly. In one case I did a "dummy" return just to see what the price would be. The man thought $150 was too much and shouldn't have to pay more than $100. I told him I couldn't do that, so he probably went elsewhere. Liberty and Jackson Hewitt have comparable prices, so he might go to one of those "mom and pop" operations that always spring up. (I don't think this man is on-line-savvy.)
Apparently snow is supposed to return tomorrow. Snow-free days were nice while they lasted.