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The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
Linus Pauling Categories
Author Archives: Stephen Ohlemacher
Social Security disability on verge of insolvency
Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security’s disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Read More
IRS eases liability rule for spouse’s tax debt
The Internal Revenue Service is making it easier for some “innocent spouses” to escape responsibility for the tax debt of their husband or wife. Read More
Inflation change could cut Social Security
Once considered untouchable, Social Security is now in play in the debt-ceiling
negotiations. And that could mean higher income taxes for many U.S. families in addition to shaved benefits for tens of millions of retirees as they age. Read More
New tax law packed with obscure business tax cuts
The massive new tax bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is filled with all kinds of holiday stocking stuffers for businesses: tax breaks for producing TV shows, grants for putting up windmills, rum subsidies for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
There is even a tax break for people who buy race horses.
Millions of homeowners, however, might feel like they got a lump of coal. Homeowners who don’t itemize their deductions will lose a tax break for paying local property taxes.
The business tax breaks are part of sweeping legislation that extends…read more Read More
Social Security needs small ‘tweaks’
Social Security faces a $5.3 trillion shortfall over the next 75 years, but a new congressional report says the massive gap could be erased with only modest changes to payroll taxes and benefits.
Some of the options are politically dangerous, such as increasing payroll taxes or reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Others, such as gradually raising the age when retirees qualify for full benefits, wouldn’t be felt for years but would affect millions . . . read more Read More
Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax
Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem.
About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That’s according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization. . . . read more Read More
IRS: Online tax filers can get refunds in 10 days
Want a quick tax refund? File your federal return online and have the refund deposited directly into your bank account.
The Internal Revenue Service launched its online filing system Friday with a promise that people who do their taxes electronically will get refunds in as few as 10 days.
For those who file paper returns, refunds are expected to take four weeks to six weeks, said David R. Williams, the agency’s director of electronic tax administration . . . read more Read More
