Maximize your work-related and self-employed travel deductions

If you are a person who travels significantly for your employer or if you are self-employed, you of course want to maximize your tax deductions related to your business travel or self-employment income. One simple and effective way to track your mileage and other travel-related expenses is to keep a small appointment book/calendar in your vehicle and record all of your business miles driven as you travel for business throughout the year. You can also record any tolls paid, meals and entertainment for business purposes, etc. in your appointment book/calendar in order to make sure you are tracking all of your trips and expenses as you incur them. Many people wait until the end of the year and then they end up scrambling to go back and remember all of their trips and expenses and usually end up missing a significant amount of expenses due to their lack of record-keeping. Recording these things as they occur in this simple manner can save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars during any given year. Plus, this will help you immensely in the event that you are audited by the IRS or your state taxing authority since this is another level of documentation that you have in addition to the receipts, itineraries, employer travel schedules, etc. that you should be keeping as well.

Please visit TaxSmarty.com for all of your income tax information, preparation and planning needs.

Tax provisions of the recently passed federal stimulus plan

Are you asking "how does the recenlty passed stimulus bill affect me personally right now?". If so, please check out this great summary of the tax provisions of the new "American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009" from our partners at CCH, Inc. Please click here to read this summary on how the new provisions can/will affect your tax situation, whether from a personal or business perspective.

It remains to be seen if these provisions along with some of the other "stimulus" provisions of this bill positively affect our national economy to any great degree since many government programs such as these tend to deliver much less than advertised, but we at TaxSmarty are always in favor of giving back dollars to the american people through tax cuts of some kind (preferably the simpler the better and more immediate than not!).

TaxSmarty's Tax Tip and Discussion Blog

Welcome to TaxSmarty's Tax Tips and Discussion Blog! Our goal to to provide income tax help to the "folks" so that you can minimize your tax burden and take advantage of every opportunity you have to keep more of what you earn. We will be blogging about various tips and strategies that you can use to legally minimize the income tax you pay to the federal government as well as your state and local government where applicable. We plan to make entries to our blog on a weekly basis during tax season and also plan to continue blogging throughout the remainder of the year. Before we get started with our initial blog entry, a little bit about our firm:

TaxSmarty provides an easy, accurate, secure and inexpensive way to complete your federal and state tax returns and efile those returns with the IRS and State taxing authorities using our CompleteTax system. Taxes have never been this easy!
We offer a plethora of free income tax information and planning resources on our website in addition to professional review of self-prepared income tax returns as well as a full-service preparation of income tax returns for reasonable fees. You can reach us on the web at www.taxsmarty.com or via email at info@taxsmarty.com

Markus & Rispoli Accounting, PLL is the professional services firm who owns and operates TaxSmarty. We provide quality and personal tax preparation and planning for individuals and small businesses along with accounting services such as write-up/bookkeeping, Quickbooks set-up and support, business systems evaluation and consulting, among other services. Markus & Rispoli Accounting has been providing quality and personal tax and accounting services to our clients since 1996. We are registered with the Accountancy Board of Ohio as a registered public accounting firm and our managing partner, Greg Markus, is a licensed CPA in the State of Ohio. We are committed to uncompromising business ethics and corporate social responsibility.
Tax Tip of the Week: Completing and updating your W-4 federal income tax withholding certificate to maximize your take-home pay.

Tip of the Week: Adjusting your federal W-4 to increase your take-home pay

In order to maximize your take-home pay, you should make sure that you claim all of the personal exemptions that you are entitled to on your W-4 Federal Income Tax Withholding Certificate. Many people unknowingly claim “0” or “1” when they are entitled to claim several more exemptions for their spouse, dependent children or other dependents and exemptions related to itemized deductions that a person is entitled to (e.g. mortgage interest and points, property taxes, state and local income taxes). After all, if you are receiving a large refund from the IRS or your State government, you have really just provided each of these entities with an interest-free loan. Just think – you could have used the extra money throughout the year to pay down your mortgage, credit card balances, pay cash for a large purchase or simply have earned some interest income from placing these additional funds into a savings account or CD. The W-4 form contains instructions on how to correctly calculate all of your withholdings that you are entitled to claim. This concept should also be applied to your state equivalent of the W-4 form if your state has an income tax withholding requirement.