Your 2010 Tax Organizer

By now most of you have begun preparing your tax documents so we can begin preparing your 2010 tax returns.  Hopefully you have also had an opportunity to access your new secure web portal via our recently redesigned website!  Here you can access your 2010 Tax Organizer, referred to within your portal as your "Web Organizer".  This contains all of your 2009 tax information, so it can be used to help you gather your 2010 tax documents. 

Also part of your Web Organizer is the 2010 Tax Questionnaire.  If you do nothing else via your portal this tax season, please at a minimum login to your portal and fill out the Questionnaire (located in the upper left of your Web Organizer page).  This will also begin to get you familiar with accessing information via your personal secure web portal.

As mentioned in previous newsletters and in your welcome letter that was sent out last month with your engagement letters (existing clients only), we will no longer be printing out paper copies of your returns.  We will be posting the finished returns to your web portal, along with all of the supporting documents you provide to us, allowing you 24/7 access to this information!  You can then print, email, etc. these documents whenever necessary.

The portals have received rave reviews so far!

Tax Time!
 

We are now smack dab in the middle of it!  I can't believe we've only got 6.5 weeks left!  If you haven't made arrangements to get us your tax information for this year please do so soon!  If your situation hasn't changed much and you do not have anything pressing to discuss for 2011, you may just drop off your tax doc, fax them to us, upload them to your Web Organizer, or even mail them in!

Some common items that are often overlooked:

• "Own. Tax" amounts for personal property tax deduction - these amounts are found on line 4 of your vehicle registration forms (the index card sized cards usually kept in your glove box in your car)
• health insurance premiums paid for self-employeds (see above article!)
• childcare/dependent care information - if you utilized a childcare provider to take care of your child(ren) so you could work, we need to know their name, address, SSN or EIN, and amounts paid to each
• HSA & IRA contribution information - the 5498 forms that typically list these contributions are sometimes not sent out until May (since many make 2010 contributions up until April 15th, 2011), so if you've made contributions please be sure to have this listed for us
• Cost Basis Info! This one gets many of us every year - if you sold investments during 2010, please check your brokerage statements to see if they provided cost basis information.  If not, please do your best to track this information down

First, First-Time Homebuyer Credit Recipients (2008) 

Those that jumped on the first bandwagon to qualify for the First-Time Homebuyer Credit have probably forgotten that the $7,500 they received was just a "loan" that is required to begin to be paid back with the 2010 tax return! 

The first version of this popular credit was for those that bought their first principal residence between 4/9/08 and 12/31/08.  If you qualified for the full credit, you recv'd a $7,500 credit/loan that will now be paid back over the next 15 years.

Another scenario where the credit may need to be repaid is for those buyers that qualified for the credit but the home has since ceased to be the taxpayer's principal residence

If you are impacted, or are not sure if you are impacted by these rules, please contact us immediately! 

Self-Employed Health Insurance Deduction 

Most folks who are self-employed, and are paying their own health insurance (i.e. not covered by a working spouse) probably are aware that they can deduct their health insurance on their 1040.  However, in the past this deduction did not reduce their self-employment income, which of course is then subject to the 15.3% self-employment tax.  Therefore, the SEHI (self-employed health insurance) deduction only reduced one's taxable income.

In the September Small Business Jobs Act passed last fall, Congress amended the IRS code to allow the deduction to now be claimed for both income taxes and self-employment tax purposes in 2010!

One thing to note, though, is if your business is reporting a loss this deduction still does not apply.