Free Federal Tax - Free Federal Tax Return Online

If you owe taxes for this year or have arranged an installment payment plan for previous year's taxes, you can have Free Federal Tax Preparation online now onwards. In recent years, the IRS has become much more user friendly, and one result is that taxpayers can relax and make their payments from home. If you have a checking account, you can enroll in the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System.

Once you're enrolled, all you have to do is to go online at least one day before your payment is actually due. You will authorize the payment much the same way you would if you were making an online purchase, and the payment will be withdrawn from your account as planned. According the IRS, this method is fast, convenient, easy, and secure. Because there are steps in the process to verify your personal information, you can be sure that no one else will have access to your account.

Pay Federal Tax Online Any Time
You can pay your taxes online at any time. The IRS will know that it's you making the payment because, when you enroll in the system, you will be given a personal identification number (PIN) to use whenever you make a payment. Every time you do make a payment, you'll receive a numbered Electronic Funds Transfer acknowledgement.


If you're thinking about paying your taxes online this year, be sure to enroll several days before the filing deadline. According to the IRS website, it may take up to ten days for your enrollment to be processed. Once you have your PIN and are enrolled, however, you only need to make payments one day before they're due.

Federal Tax Return Preparation - Should I File On My Own Or Hire An Expert?
Sometimes people need help with their taxpreparation. Most of the time, people don't have the time or interest to dig through all the details of completing their federal and state tax preparation documents.

The advantage of hiring an tax expert or a firm is that you will not have to worry about filing the federal or the state returns. You simply have to collect all the documents (previous year's returns, W-2s, 1099's, receipts etc) and forward them along. Depending on your choice of tax preparation there will be an expense associated with it. A lot of experts charge you a basic fee for filing along with charges for any additional forms that they file depending on your situation.

A useful tip - If you anticipate that your returns aren't complicated consider using tax preparation software or file taxes online. In this way, you will be able to use the 'basic' versions of these tools for tax preparation. When it comes time to file, you can choose to file electronically or print the completed forms and mail these to the IRS. Depending on your situation, you can make the appropriate choice.


Even though it will be more expensive to hire a tax preparer people will feel that this method is more cost-effective, because it helps relieve some of the anxiety associated with tax preparation. Besides giving you peace of mind this will also help save time to do more interesting stuff.
The good news about preparing federal taxes is that the rules are the same country-wide. Its not like state returns where there are a variety of rules that you have to keep in mind before filing your return. So you can see that preparation of federal taxes are the same for everybody regardless of the state of residence or where they are living at the moment.

Once you make the decision to sell your home, there are a bevy of issues you need to keep in mind. As with most anything involving money, taxes are one such subject.

The real estate market is definitely pulling back. There is no longer any dispute about that. Still, people that have owned their homes for more than three years are sitting pretty because property appreciation was on steroids for so long. If you are one of these people or have owned your home even longer, you are sitting on a big profitable nest egg. So, what happens when you sell it?

The sale of a home is viewed as a business transaction for the most part by the IRS. Simply put, is there a profit? If there is, the profit is going to be taxed. Unlike what you would expect with a business, the tax is going be a capital gain version. The tax will be based on the sales price minus the original purchase price plus any improvement costs. Let's look at a simple example.

Assume I purchased a home in San Diego in 1995 for $300,000. I spent $50,000 over the years doing improvements. In 2008, I decide to sell and move to a less crowded area of the nation. I sell my home for $600,000. How do I look on taxes? Well, I have a profit of $250,000 [$600,000 - $350,000].

So, do I have to pay capital gains tax on the $250,000? Nope! There is a great exemption built into the tax code. As long as we are talking about my main home and I haven't sold in the previous 2 years, I can claim an exemption. For a single person, the exemption is $250,000. For married couples, it is $500,000. Not bad, eh?

This exemption is not a one time affair. It can be used time and again over the years, so you should be planning your home purchase and sales accordingly. Avoiding paying capital gains tax on hundreds of thousands of dollars definitely calls for taking the time and effort to plan out the process.

Labels: Federal Tax Issues