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Unfortunately, when it comes to taxes, that “D’oh!” can cost dough. Sometimes an error means paying more in taxes. Other times it delays refunds. To help make sure your return is perfect, here are 16 common tax-filing errors that you can avoid.

1. Mis-figuring the child tax credit. The good intentions of lawmakers have turned into a tax-filing nightmare for more than a million taxpayers.
2. Making math errors. Every year, the most common mistake on tax returns is bad math. Mistakes in arithmetic or in transferring figures from one schedule to another will get you an immediate correction notice.
3. Not including Social Security numbers. Since the IRS stopped putting  taxpayer  Social  Security  numbers  on  tax  package  labels  in response  to  privacy  concerns,  many  taxpayers  forget  to  write  in their identification numbers.
4. Not signing and dating your return. For legal purposes, the IRS will not process a return if it does not have a signature. Continue reading ‘16 common tax filing errors to avoid’ »

1. Check  and  adjust  your  paycheck  withholding  to  make  sure  you have enough taxes taken out of your paycheck—especially if you married, had a child, bought a house, or are expecting a large bonus at  the  end  of  the  year.
2. Make your January 1 mortgage payment (which really represents interest for the month of December) before the end of the year so that  you  can  take  an  additional  deduction  this  tax  year  for  the interest  paid.
3. You may benefit from the recent law which cut the capital gains rate to 15 percent and reduced taxes on dividends from the ordinary  income  rate  to  15  percent. You  can  help  your  tax  situation even more by selling poorly performing stocks at a loss to balance out any gains.
4. Get philanthropic. Itemized gifts of cash or goods can be deducted to reduce Continue reading ‘Ten ToDo to Get Ready for Tax Time’ »

Some 44 million Americans—one in seven—have no health insurance. For those who do, nearly 85 percent receive it through their employer or their spouse’s employer. While companies still pay the bulk of their workers’ health  care  costs,  their  contributions  have  slipped  in  recent years  and  now  hover  around  70  percent. This  means  that  workers’ copayments and deductibles are up. Even though the stakes are high here, just 17 percent of us spend more than an hour reading our health plan manuals. Fewer than half read the materials with anything more than a cursory glance—until we need to make a claim.

Continue reading ‘The Three C’s to Consider in Health Insurance’ »

Title:Your Financial Action Plan: 12 Simple Steps to Achieve Money Success
Author: G. Cotter Cunningham
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN-10: 0471650307
ISBN-13: 978-0471650300
Start: 2010-10-17
End: 2010-10-24

• When creating an emergency fund, the rule of thumb is to stow between three and six months’ worth of income someplace where it earns interest until you need it. “Need” means that you’re facing a financial sickness, not a mere hiccup.
• The most important thing is to take the plunge: Pay yourself first and start saving. An emergency fund should be part of your savings plan, but by no means the only part.
• Money market mutual funds invest in shorterm corporate and government debt securities and earn a variable interest rate that is often comparable to the interest earned on CDs. You may withdraw money at any time without penalty.
• Shift your bills around by changing the due dates on your credit cards. In this way they will not be so heavy during one part of the month.
• Group your expenses into three categories: fixed expenses (mortgage or rent, car payments, insurance premiums, and savings); variable expenses (regular bills whose amounts can change, such as electric or phone bills); and discretionary (what’s left after the basics are covered).
• Bankrate suggests that you should count on needing 70 to 90 percent of what you’re spending in your pre-retirement life to live a comfortable retirement. (This does not account for inflation.)
• No matter where you invest, it’s best to do so regularly where a fixed amount is deducted automatically from your paycheck monthly and invested in mutual funds. The result is dollar-cost averaging, which means you buy more shares when prices are low and fewer when prices are high.
• Don’t pay a bank for its services. Rather, let them pay you. Add enough to your minimum account balance so that it becomes fee-free.