Tax Carnival #32: Tax Time Management

This tax-filing season, Leap Year gave us an extra day to complete our taxes. But then this past weekend's arrival of Daylight Savings Time took back an hour of that added day.

So that none of us ends up bemoaning lost minutes when April 15 rolls around, the collection of bloggings in our 32nd Tax Carnival should help with Tax Time Management.

Since, as the saying goes, time's a-wasting, let's get started. And there's no better place to begin than with a look at some tax laws.

Dan Meyer of Tick Marks goes right to the legal top with Employer 401[k]s Not Immune from Legal Action, saying, "The Supreme Court allows employees to sue employer-administered 401[k] plans."

Raymond looks at the tax ramifications of making a little money off your plastic in Are Credit Card Rewards and Cash Rebates Taxable Income? posted at Money Blue Book.

Diane Dean presents Mortgage Claim Release Act: posted at Need IRS Help?

And speaking of housing issues, Dr. Gavin R. Putland gives us the property/tax point of view from Down Under in Rationalizing stamp duty posted at Putland Uncensored.

Of course, if you violate tax laws, you could find yourself facing an IRS examination.

Tracy Coenen of FRAUDfiles offers some anti-audit advice: Want to get out of paying taxes? Don't try these excuses!

And Beckie from A Tax Consultant for All Seasons presents Help! I just received a notice from the IRS? Part II.

You can avoid such tax troubles by careful filing.

nickel presents The Value of Doing Your Own Taxes posted at fivecentnickel.com.

FIRE Finance, of FIRE Finance, presents How to e-File Multiple State Returns with TaxAct Online.

Abby Freedman presents Get your taxes done for free, posted at Smart Spending. "It's very annoying how few people know that they can get free help and/or free e-filing," says Abby. "People assume that if they're middle-class, they aren't eligible, because most of the programs are run by AARP and charity organizations."

And we all should be in Pinyo's situation, who reports his 2007 Tax Year Returns Are Done! It's posted at Moolanomy.

A key part of filing is reducing your income via deductions.

Jose DeJesus presents Tax Deductions You May Have Missed, posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

Steve Faber warns against getting over ambitious in this regard in IRS Tax Deductions – 7 You CAN’T Take, posted at Debt Free. 

David presents Part-Time Entrepreneurs: Is Your Loss Deductible? Check the IRS Hobby Loss Rule posted at Money Under 30.

Kristine McKinley answers the question, "What are the main deductions common to home based/online/ebay businesses?" in Biz Tax Tips: List of Tax Deductions for On line Biz Owners. It's posted at Tax Tips for Ebay Sellers.

Leon Gettler presents Backdated tax gifts posted at Sox First, saying, "Donations to charity are tax deductible. But what if they are in the form of backdated stock gifts?"

Another way to reduce taxes, either now or in the future, is by putting money in a retirement account.

Rio Rivas of Get Financially Fit! tells us Maximize your IRA Contribution for 2008, saying, "Maximize your Roth IRA to avoid future taxes!"

Abdulrasool Sumar discusses the Tax Treatment of Roth IRA Distributions, posted at 401k Look Up, saying, "The Roth IRA allows investors to take tax-free qualified distributions without having to pay the 10% penalty. Here's how it works."

It always helps to keep our filing duties in perspective with a little tax humor.

Hammy presents They Tax Me, They Tax Me Not posted at The Blah Blahs and the Ada Yards.

Gus presents Another Osmond.com film: "Any Given Tax Season" posted at IRS Mind, a tax parody of Al Pacino's speech in that football film.

We started with tax law issues, so let's come full circle and look at some proposed changes to our tax system.

Kristin presents Knee Deep in Turbid Tax, posted a The Financial Engineer. It's a look at a proposal that the IRS fill out our taxes for us.

Another political proposition comes from Livingalmostlarge, who presents Understanding the Fair Tax at Living Almost Large, saying, "Should we have a fair tax? Is it really fair?"

While we wait to see what tax changes the coming election might bring us, FMF presents some ways to deal with the here and now in My Best Piece of Tax Advice, posted at Free Money Finance.

And Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life brings us help straight from the source in Your Tax Questions Answered: Interview with an IRS Agent.

Well, time's up for our 32nd Carnival of Taxes: Tax Time Management. Thanks to all my fellow bloggers for their tax-specific submissions.

Special thanks to all you readers. I hope you found it the Tax Carnival a productive way to spend part of your full schedule.

Be sure to mark your calendar for March 24. That's when edition #33 will be posted. You can be a part of it by sending your tax-related submission via our carnival submission form. And you can check out past Tax Carnivals and all the upcoming editions on our blog carnival index page.

Comments

[Money Blue Book]

Thanks for the article inclusion. Nice collection of warped clocks!
-Raymond

[Pinyo]

Terrific job with the carnival. Thank you.