Beware these bad tax eggs

March 23, 2008

By now on this Easter Sunday, the kids probably have already dived into their Easter baskets, consuming way too much chocolate, in the form of hollow-eared rabbits, and sugar, courtesy of those gooey little Peeps.

Easter_eggs_2
And, of course, there are the Easter eggs. There are many explanations as to why the thing of omelets came to be "hunted" on this special Christian holiday; you can read some of them in this Wikipedia entry.

Hunting for Easter eggs naturally brings to mind, for tax geeks anyway, our annual hunt for tax breaks. I’ll post more on these soon; in the meantime, Wells Fargo has compiled a good overview of common deductions.

Bad tax eggs: But the flip side of those beautifully decorated eggs is the occasional bad one that turns up and makes us turn up our noses. That happens in taxes, too.

Bad tax eggs also can be costly. So to help you avoid, or at least not be surprised by, these stinkers in the Internal Revenue Code, below are five rotten tax laws to watch out for. Specifically, these are instances of income on which you might find you owe taxes:

  1. Unemployment benefits,
  2. Alimony,
  3. Forgiven debt,
  4. Prize winnings, and
  5. Social Security retirement payments.

Details on each of these potentially taxable types of income can be found in this Bankrate story, 5 Terrible Tax Surprises.

Now I’m off to make egg salad for Easter lunch.

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Those procrastinating filers aren’t a problem. In fact, the IRS appreciates taxpayers who take time to fill out their 1040 forms correctly. It also is grateful that tax submissions are spread out a bit, especially now that the IRS is a leaner agency. Processing returns is easier when they arrive throughout the year instead of in massive bunches.

But enough about Uncle Sam’s tax collection issues. The focus now is on all y’all who filed for extensions, giving you another six months to complete your return. Since your new mid-October due date will be here before you know it, let’s get started now on meeting it.

The ol’ blog is here to help you finish up your extended Form 1040. You can start with January’s tax tips page, which has links to the rest of the year’s tips by-month collections. You also can peruse various tax categories for more tailored advice by clicking on the More Tax Posts drop-down menu at the top of this (and every) page.

And to make sure you don’t miss your new filing deadline, the count-down clock below will let you know just how much time you to file by Oct. 15. At the latest.e. (Note: I’m in the Central Time Zone, so adjust accordingly for where you live.)

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