The Sun's Financial Diary

I received the following tax tips from Nancy Colson, who represents J. K. Lasser, a tax expert. After obtaining a permission, I decided to post these tips here to share with everybody since I feel they are quite helpful in this tax season. For more information, visit www.jklasser.com.    Mistakes and Potential Pitfalls Not filing [...]

If you are living in the Northeast and is affected by the weekend storm, IRS will give you two extra days to file your income tax return beyond the April 17 deadline. According to the IRS announcement, Victims of the major storm affecting several Northeastern states on Monday, April 16 will have two additional days [...]

Well, I waited till the last minute to finish our taxes (thanks for the two extra days). Actually, I started the work in February, shortly after all the forms were in, but suspended it when I noticed that we had to send back a big check. I never rush when I need to pay money [...]

Last week I got an email from a reader about the difference between Traditional and Roth IRA. The question is more on the withdraw side than contribution side. After giving a quick answer, I feel I can expand it a little bit with more information on this topic. But tax rules are always complex, so [...]

CNNMoney.com yesterday has an article which listed top 5 most tax-friendly states and top 5 states with the most heavy tax burdens. According to the article, For the 17th year in a row, the far Western state earned the distinction of being America’s most tax-friendly state. Among them, Alaska ranked No. 1 with the lightest [...]

Early last week, MSN Money has an article saying that there’s a $30 to $60 tax refund that more than one third taxpayers may forget to claim, yet it could be the easiest refund one can get. So what is it exactly? It’s the telephone tax refund. According to the IRS website, The telephone tax [...]

Paying too much income taxes? When it comes to income taxes, not just how much you earn matters, your location also plays a role, a big role. So instead of trying to squeeze a few bucks from various deductions, you may want to consider relocation if you are living in one of the cities in [...]

I enrolled in the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) on January 25 in anticipation of some tax payment again this year. Over the weekend, the first package with personal information and instruction on how to use EFTPS arrived, followed by another envelop with a PIN that I have to use to obtain an internet [...]