You can claim 50% of your mortgage interest if you have a rental suite. ( assuming suite is half the size of your house) Of course then you have to declare the income from the suite also.

Powered by

We legally separated in march 2010, divorce was final two days ago. i am filing head of house hold, he filed married filing separate. he has not lived in the home since march, i have paid the mortgage payment and was awarded the house in divorce decree. he payed 800.00 monthly alimony, which i understand i need to declare as income. but he also claimed half the mortgage interest and listed my address on the form. we have one son and he did not claim him as a dependent, i have full custody. i live in alaska....any help would be greatly appreciated.

None of that is what counts. Is his name on the mortgage? If it is he gets 50%.

Powered by

I have an idea for a new stimulus plan.. it may be stupid, but i'm just a guy with a high school education so there are undoubtedly things i didn't think about. 1. reclaim 100% (with interest) of the money that was paid during the bailout from the banks and automotive manufacturers. -based on the census numbers from 1996 (it was as current as i could find), it was estimated there would be 114 million households in 2010. so, in the interest of estimating high, i'll say there are 120 million now. http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p2 5-1129.pdf 2. take the money reclaimed and create a one-time credit of $100,000 per household of taxpayers and dependents. yes, i understand that this would equal $12 trillion. -each household would mean that even though there may be 3 or more actual taxpayers in the household, the credit would be for that single residence. -the determination would be based on current physical address that must be verified by proof of recent bank accounts and bills.... we all know the drill. -this credit would not be issued as a tax credit or cash. it would have to be filed as a claim to a state office where all of the documentation is reviewed and processed. (this could create temp jobs too.) the credit would be used only to pay off existing credit accounts, car loans, mortgage payments, and other outstanding debt held by members of the household. -the credit would be equally divided among members of the household or however the members of the household agree. only one claim package will be accepted per household and if multiple are found, then it will be set aside for assessment. -should the household not need all $100k, the remaining may be applied to the purchase of a home or split equally among the members of the household and put in their social security fund. members of the household will not be required to use the full $100k. -claims for credit used to purchase a new home must be spent on a home that is on a foreclosure listing and must be used as a primary residence of at least one member of the household for no less than 5 years. member must be 18 years of age or older and a taxpayer. 3. members of a household submit a claim for this credit must agree to forfeit any federal tax refunds for the term of 10 years, or until the amount of cummulitive refunds forfeited excedes the amount credited. whichever happens first. -members of a household that make a claim will not be entitled to earned income credit during any year that a refund is forfeited. -members that move from one household to another will still be required to fulfill the tax liability agreed to at the time the credit is issued. -itemized deductions, and standard tax credits will still be allowed when filing taxes to determine whether or not taxes are due. there's a lot more that can be included as this is just the basic idea. the details could be hashed out later. i believe that even though there will be fraud with a program like this, it will still accomplish the following: 1. taxpayers will be able to free themselves of excessive debts. 2. financial institutions will not falter as they will receive the money used to pay off the debts without significant government regulation, but will have to understand that they will be allowed to fail later. 3. the national debt will be reduced in a more timely manner without significant hardships placed on taxpayers. furthermore, there will be less need for tax increases once the number of refunds has been reduced to a smaller percentage. i'm not sure that this idea is great, but it was just an idea and i'd like to see what people really think about. so, how about it??? thank you all so far for your inputs. like i said, i'm a guy with a high school education, not a master in finance or anything and this was just a thought. to be more detailed about the tax repayment part, as an example, my family received approximately $5k last year in tax refunds that was over what we actually paid. (not that i minded uncle sam handing us the money) i actually had to ask our tax preparer to get a supervisor to recheck the numbers because our refund equalled just over $10k between state and federal. my wife and i had total income of just over $36k the year before. so, that being the case, how many other families received just as much in refunds last year? with my idea, nobody will get refunded more than paid into taxes even if they don't take the $100k. part ii so, subtract 50% from the total population of the us,http://www.census.gov/population /www/popclockus.html, multiply that by $100 and then multiply that again by 10 years... dividing the population by 50% is just by uneducated estimate of non-tax paying persons that include children, illegal immigrants, and persons that would get nearly everything back in taxes. the purpose of a program like this would be 1. clear consumer debt without killing the companies that own the debt. 2. give conusmers the ability to spend more on things that they need. and 3. create a handful a jobs. yes, there will be fraud. but no worse than there is right now. if the banks and everyone have paid off the loans we gave them... well, then this idea is completely dead anyway. again, thanks for the input. i'm definately not an economist so i was sure there was going to be a lot of "holes" in this idea.

1. The government already got back "100% (With interest) of the money that was paid during the bailout from the banks". The banks did not keep any of the money and repaid it all, with interest. The auto manufacturers do not have enough money for the government to reclaim 100%, or anywhere close to that, with or without interest, from automotive manufacturers. 2. Since the banks already repaid everything, and the auto makers do not have $12 trillion, or anything close to that, there would be no way to get the amount that you suggest. 3. There would be fraud. Many of the applications would have lies. It would take many years to determine how much, if anything, any particular household qualified to receive. The money would not be paid in time to accomplish what you want. 4. Anyone who already has excessive debts would not be freed in time to do any good. They would need to pay the debts before the "credit" was received. 5. Financial institutions would falter, because they would not receive the money for many years, see point 3 about it taking years to determine how much to pay each household. 6. Both taxes and the national debt would increase, because the money paid to banks and auto makers that has not been reclaimed already and can still be reclaimed is not nearly $12 trillion, and is essentially $0 (since the money paid to the banks was already reclaimed and most of the money paid to the auto makers cannot be reclaimed). 7. There would be a greater need for tax increases because of the interest payments on the additional $12 trillion added to the national debt.

Powered by

Http://factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-ex pansion/ this wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new irs employees might be required to administer the new law. that devolved quickly into a claim, made by some republican lawmakers, that 16,500 irs "agents" would be required. republican rep. ron paul of texas even claimed in a televised interview that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. none of those claims is true. the irs’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them — starting this year — which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. and in 2014 the irs will also be administering additional subsidies — in the form of refundable tax credits — to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance. the law does make individuals subject to a tax, starting in 2014, if they fail to obtain health insurance coverage. but irs commissioner douglas shulman testified before a hearing of the house ways and means committee march 25 that the irs won’t be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance. he said insurance companies will issue forms certifying that individuals have coverage that meets the federal mandate, similar to a form that lenders use to verify the amount of interest someone has paid on their home mortgage. "we expect to get a simple form, that we won’t look behind, that says this person has acceptable health coverage," shulman said. "so there’s not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an irs employee." in any case, the bill signed into law (on page 131) specifically prohibits the irs from using the liens and levies commonly used to collect money owed by delinquent taxpayers, and rules out any criminal penalties for individuals who refuse to pay the tax or those who don’t obtain coverage. that doesn’t leave a lot for irs enforcers to do. right wing cuban...why do you need assistance from the government ?

The Republican focus is just on beating President Obama down, honestly, dishonestly, by innuendo or insult. It's really disgusting. Being negative is the easiest damn thing in the world. That's all you're seeing. Governor Palin, by the way, is a moron.

Powered by

I'm not sure if this is really a question, more of a request for opinions. i'm 31 years old and have worked since i was 16. i joined the military when i was 19, started earning decent paycheck, and was scared to death to do taxes because of my mother's tax drama, ha ha. i haven't received less than 2k back since 1999. i did claim zero on my w4 for a long time but once i became a single parent, i changed that to 1. for as long as i can remember, my mother has dreaded tax season, i can remember her stressing and claiming that they owed xxx amount from the time i learned what taxes were. her reasoning was always "the house stuff", which i never really understood and didn't ever get an explanation. when my husband and i became homeowners 5 years ago, i kept her comments in the back of my mind and was surprised to find that, wow, no tax problems. since we've been married, bought our house and continued earning more- we've steadily received an increase in refund each year. we did both change our exemptions to avoid giving uncle sugar an interest free loan, but we still receive several thousand back (too much i think-10k+ this year-we're definitely not going to let that happen again), and we have less children than my parents did. i don't get it. we do make about 50k more than they do per year, but i don't understand why that would make a difference in an owing vs not aspect. they're in their late 50's. she just told me that she will owe about $2400 to the irs for 2010. the two times my parents have received a refund in the last 15 years or so, it has been for less than $300. i have tried to talk to her about what the issue might be, but she just doesn't want to discuss it at all. she also insinuates that i'm exaggerating about the fact that i've never owed taxes. my parents are hardworking, intelligent people and i am worried that they're doing something "wrong"- not morally or legally wrong, but filing wrong, either out of ignorance or just making mistakes. it really bothers me because they get sooo worked up and stressed about it and from what i can see, there's just no reason for them to owe. last year, i convinced her to file her 2009 taxes electronically, she said it was a "mess" and that she'll stick to her paper forms because filing electronically doesn't suit their needs. i just don't get it. she always speaks as though her finances are extremely complicated, but now that i'm an adult and handling my own, i can't imagine what could possibly "complicate" their taxes. they live a simple life, don't invest, own one piece of property (i think they have a 2nd mortgage on it) and have had 2-4 qualifying dependent children until this year when the last of us (twins) left the nest. my brother and i put ourselves through college, so that's not anything they've had to deal with from a tax standpoint either. does anyone have an idea why a simple, 2 person household with an income of about 60k have such issues? i would really like to help them avoid paying the irs every year.

Oh, I feel your pain! It can be so hard to talk to relatives about money. Even more frustrating when you want to help, but they only want to talk about how poor or overtaxes or somehow oppressed they are but don't want to actually do anything about it. Someday when you are feeling especially calm, you might try saying something along the lines of, "You know Mom, it makes me stressed out every year when I hear that you are having tax problems. You sound stressed out, too. I would like to help so that we can both be happier." Either she can take it or leave it. Hopefully, if she won't take your help, she will at least stop talking to you about it. Good luck!

Powered by

Http://factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-ex pansion/ this wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new irs employees might be required to administer the new law. that devolved quickly into a claim, made by some republican lawmakers, that 16,500 irs "agents" would be required. republican rep. ron paul of texas even claimed in a televised interview that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. none of those claims is true. the irs’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them — starting this year — which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. and in 2014 the irs will also be administering additional subsidies — in the form of refundable tax credits — to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance. the law does make individuals subject to a tax, starting in 2014, if they fail to obtain health insurance coverage. but irs commissioner douglas shulman testified before a hearing of the house ways and means committee march 25 that the irs won’t be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance. he said insurance companies will issue forms certifying that individuals have coverage that meets the federal mandate, similar to a form that lenders use to verify the amount of interest someone has paid on their home mortgage. "we expect to get a simple form, that we won’t look behind, that says this person has acceptable health coverage," shulman said. "so there’s not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an irs employee." in any case, the bill signed into law (on page 131) specifically prohibits the irs from using the liens and levies commonly used to collect money owed by delinquent taxpayers, and rules out any criminal penalties for individuals who refuse to pay the tax or those who don’t obtain coverage. that doesn’t leave a lot for irs enforcers to do.

Because that is what they want to believe. The paranoid and gullible are easy to convince that the other 'team' is going to do them harm in some way.