The Tax Questions Blog

Archive for December, 2009

Question: Is the interest the HMRC pays on tax repayments itself taxable income?

When the HMRC pays you back the tax you overpaid they will as a rule add interest. Is that interest you receive from HMRC taxable income to be included on your next tax return?
believe it or not they do pay you interest if you overpaid. See this link:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/interest-repayments.htm

Answer: No, it's not taxable, but they only pay it if the repayment is more than a year late. They charge from scratch, even if payment to them is a day late! Have you looked at the table on HMRC interest rates (on HMRC website), and seen the difference between what they pay and what they charge? Would do credit to any profit-making bank!

Cash clinic: Rental headache as tax deadline looms

Q I GOT married last year, moved into my wife's flat and started renting mine out. I now need to pay tax on that rental income, but I have been grappling with HM Revenue &

Question: Is there tax for gifts given by the company to the employees, what is the minimum gift amount not taxable?

Answer: If you get a gift from a company, yes it is taxable and no!! it can be a tax deduction for the company. They will issue a 1099misc for the value of the gift to each person. It is taxable on terms of how ur file ur tax return. The gift amount will work as income, keep in mind that there is two types of income on a tax return, unearn income and earn income. gifts are unearn income. So it may effect your tax liablity and it may not even touch it. It will depend on ur situation. Ex..If you were givin a car, the vaule of the car will be what u pay taxes on. It will calculate as unearn income and that will be what you will pay. But for more dept in this subject read publication 17 on the irs.gov site and look under gifts.

Shocker! Pay tax on perks, now

Your tax burden has just gone up, with the government issuing the new guidelines for taxation of perquisites. Valuation of cars goes through a revision.

Question: How is interest on CD's taxed?

Interest on certificates of deposit, family savings.

1. Correct me if I'm wrong - the bank normally doesn't withhold anything, only reports the income to me on a 1099-INT?

2. Does it just get added to my overall taxable income on the 1040, or is it subject to separate rules or rates?

3. Is such interest income considered effectively connected income or not?

Answer: When you open the CD, you sign paperwork indicating if you are a US Citizen or resident alien (a W-9) or if you are a non-resident alien (a W-8Ben).

For the US person, you get a 1099-INT at the end of the year and if you gave them an SSN, no tax is withheld. You are required to report the income on the 1040.

For the non-US person, the form would be a 1042-S and if taxes apply, 30% would be withheld.

From your questions, you clearly must determine if you are a US person first, then the tax issues second.

Better late than never on college savings plan

Your child is in high school. Is it too late to start a 529 college savings plan? The reluctance to dive in so late in the game is understandable, given the stock market swoons in the past two years. You might worry about not recovering from any turbulence in time.

Peter Newman, Scott Borden, Michael Lee: Economics 2009

Question: If I just received a letter from the IRS that my 2007 tax return is being review and i have 30 days to respond

Will they try to delay my 2007 taxes? I recieved the letter on 01/07/2007 requesting additional information.

Answer: You must mean your 2006 return. The 2007 tax season is still open and the IRS isn't reviewing 2007 returns yet and won't even start on that until late in 2008.

If a prior year return is under review when you file, any refund will be delayed until any returns under review are resolved.

No More Free State Tax Forms At Libraries Or Post Offices

The North Carolina Department of Revenue will not be providing printed tax forms or instruction books for distribution this year to any library or post office.

Talk direct to Dave Hartnett about his review of tax agents

What is the importance of updating your blog often? Some might see no value in it; and might instead create multiple blogs, each of which they attend to for only minutes each week. Other blog owners see the importance of updating your blog often—and will spend 3-4 hours each day updating their blogs with news and ideas.

From both a technical marketing viewpoint and a social marketing viewpoint, updating your blog often is one of the best ways to maintain a constant stream of traffic.

From a technical viewpoint, new and unique content makes your blog look better to search engine spiders; this, in turn, gets your blog ranked higher. Additionally, from a technical viewpoint, updating your blog more frequently will allow you to get pings accepted more frequently, which means your blog will spend more time on the front page of blog directories.

The importance of updating your blog often also comes into play if you wish to integrate extensive social marketing into your overall blog marketing plan. Most people don't realize this, but marketing is often all about the human connections.

You don't need to be a technical wizard if you forget about profits for a few minutes and instead concentrate on making human connections with other blog owners who share similar interests. One of the best ways to achieve this is by keeping an updated blog, which will give other bloggers the incentive to drop by each day, post new comments on your blog, and refer their own blog readers to your blog. The importance of updating your blog often is crucial.

And there you have it: the importance of updating your blog often is paramount to success. Whether your goal is to use your blog for social marketing or technical marketing, you will have to update it often with unique and interesting content if you want to build an atmosphere that encourages return visits.

The Media Consortium: Weekly Audit: Geithner, Bailouts, and the Financial Crisis

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger The AIG bailout is one of the largest redistributions of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to bigwig bankers in history,...

The Downtown Lancaster Convention Center