November 2009 | Page 4 of 7

Shopping For Medicare Drug Plans

Nov 13 2009

The most important shopping you will do this holiday season is for your Medicare drug plan for next year. November 15 through December 31 is your only opportunity to sign up for the best plan for next year.

The Medicare part D program provides beneficiaries with assistance paying for prescription drugs. Unlike hospital and doctor coverage, which is provided within traditional Medicare or through Medicare advantage plans, the drug coverage requires beneficiaries to enroll in one of the dozens of different programs offered by private companies.

The difficulty for beneficiaries is that no two private company drug plans are the …

Buying a home to cash in on home buyers tax credit?

Nov 12 2009

You may have heard that the first-time home buying tax credit was extended through April 30 next year, and that it now includes a credit for some non-first-time home buyers also. For details on the extension and who is eligible, visit the IRS website.

This is great news if you fall into the eligible groups and were already planning to purchase a home. A tax credit is an actual dollar-for-dollar credit against your tax liability, as compared to a tax deduction which just reduces your taxable income. A deduction, depending on which tax bracket you’re in, saves you between …

What is the First Time Home-Buyers Credit?

Nov 12 2009

In an update to the update, I wanted to pass this along: part of the bill passed last week which extended the first-time homebuyer’s credit through June of 2010, ALSO expanded the types of homebuyers to include “long-term residents of the same principal residence”. This “long-term resident” is defined as a homeowner who has owned and lived in the same principal residence for five consecutive years within the eight year period ending with the purchase of the new home. New limits are in effect, as well – originally this credit (maximum $8,000 for first-timers, $6,500 for long-timer homeowners) phased out… Read More

Is Your Year-End Tax Strategy A Turkey?

Nov 12 2009

It’s that time of year again. The one day you eat roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie all in one sitting. No wonder you have to take a nap afterwards. But once you’ve recovered your appetite, watched all the football games, and done all your Black Friday shopping, you might want to think a little bit about some year-end tax planning. In fact, if you do much Black Friday shopping at all, you definitely want to think about your upcoming tax bill before year-end.

Here are 3 topics to raise with your CPA before December 31 this year. …

How Can I Undo a Roth Conversion?

Nov 12 2009

So you’ve done a Roth Conversion and now you’re ready to do your taxes and (horrors!) you see the bill for the conversion! Yikes! Somehow a simple decimal point miscalculation has caused your nice little conversion to run up a HUGE tax bill… What to do?

Well, just the same as with Tooter the Turtle in the old cartoon, you can follow Mr. Wizard’s advice and “be just what youse is, not what youse is not” – in other words, you can undo the conversion, so that you are back where you started. This is called a Recharacterization of the… Read More

Archive - November 2009