Have You Lost Your Job? Here’s What You Need to Know About Taxes
In 2022 alone, there were approximately 15.4 million layoffs in the United States as per one recent study. About 6.9 million of them happened in the last half of the year, from August to December. It’s also worth noting that this is certainly nothing new. It has been estimated that about 40% of people have been laid off (or fired) from a job at least once in their lifetime, and about half the country experiences full-blown layoff anxiety on a regular basis.
Whether you are laid off or fired, the chances are high that you will quickly find yourself on unemployment. While this can absolutely provide some much-needed financial relief at an important part of your life, there are some things about potential tax implications that you’ll definitely want to be aware of moving forward.
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If you hire a domestic worker to provide services in or around your home, you probably have a tax liability that you don’t know about – or one that you do know about but are ignoring. Either situation can come back to bite you. When the worker is your employee, your liability includes both withholding and paying payroll taxes as well as issuing a W-2 after the close of the year.
Many taxpayers don’t feel the need to keep home improvement records, thinking the potential gain will never exceed the amount of the tax code’s exclusion for home gains explained as follows.
Many taxpayers prefer to care for ill or disabled family members in their homes as opposed to placing them in nursing homes, but doing this can be expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting. The government also recognizes home care as a means of reducing the government’s costs in terms of caring for individuals who otherwise would be institutionalized (because they require the type of care that is normally provided in a hospital, nursing facility, or intermediate care facility).
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who actually enjoys the process of filing taxes. Having said that, it’s absolutely something that you’re supposed to do like clockwork every single year.
2023 brings with it a whole new set of rules related to qualifying for a tax credit for purchasing a used electric vehicle. This is the first time that used electric vehicles have qualified for a tax credit, and although considerably less than the credit for purchasing a new electric vehicle, it does provide an incentive for lower income taxpayers to acquire an electric vehicle. However, this new credit – officially termed the Previously-Owned Clean Vehicle Credit in the tax code – also comes with some rules that limit the vehicles that qualify, and essentially bars the credit to higher income taxpayers. Here are the details.
If you are a grandparent there are several things you can do to teach your grandchildren financial responsibility and set aside money for their future education and retirement. Before we get into actual suggestions, it is important that you understand the gift tax rules. You can give anyone, every year, an amount up to the annual gift tax exclusion. The gift tax exclusion is inflation-adjusted and is currently $17,000, which means that, in 2023, you can give any number of recipients up to $17,000. Thus, you can give each grandchild $17,000per year; and, if you are married, both you and your spouse can each give $17,000 for a total of $34,000 per year. Gifts in excess of $17,000 per donee can certainly be made, but doing so will mean the grandparent must file a Gift Tax Return (Form 709) and pay gift tax on taxable gifts in excess of a lifetime gift and estate tax exclusion $12.92 Million for 2023).
If you are a divorced or separated parent, a commonly encountered but often misunderstood issue is who claims the child or children for tax purposes. This is sometimes a hotly disputed issue between parents; however, tax law includes some very specific but complicated rules about who profits from the child-related tax benefits. At issue are a number of benefits, including the children’s dependency, child tax credit, child care credit, higher-education tuition credit, earned income tax credit, and, in some cases, even filing status.
Maybe you’re one of the people who went through mass layoffs in virtually all industries in 2022. Maybe you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to become more financially stable in 2023. You might even be worried that this is the year that the economy will truly enter into the recession that many have predicted for quite some time.
Especially in the early days of a business, it can be natural to want to handle as many day-to-day tasks yourself – bookkeeping included. Sometimes, it’s in an effort to save money. Often, entrepreneurs just feel like they’re in a better position to handle everything themselves. Regardless, this situation does seem to play out regularly.