May has arrived!That exclamation mark is sincere and deserved. You've got to love a month that starts with a celebration.
May Pole Dance via GIPHY
After the May Day dances are done, the commemorative days just keep coming. There are well-known ones, like Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day, as well as some more obscure ones, like Visit Your Relatives Day, National Smile Day, and my favorite, Eat What You Want Day.
But even with all these (and more!) celebrations, there's still time to make some money-saving May tax moves. Let's get to it!
May 1: While
May Day isn't a big holiday in the United States, globally the first day of May is a time for celebrating workers' contributions. But that can apply here, too, in connection with some employment-related tax tasks. If you got a big refund or owed more tax than you expected when you filed (or got an extension) last month, today's the perfect time to do
paycheck check-up to determine how you should
adjust your withholding.
May 5: ¡
Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
Fiestas are back this year, as more of us have been taken advantage of COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters. Still, be careful out there celebrating this Mexican holiday (and no, it's NOT Mexican Independence Day) that tends to spur more festivities here north of the border. Party responsibly, both when it come to the lingering pandemic and imbibing your favorite adult beverage, likely a margarita, which included the cost of state and federal alcohol taxes. Your state tax collector also will raise a glass to your fiscal contribution, since during the pandemic, sin taxes were a revenue bright spot for many states.
May 8: Happy Mother's Day!
If you're just this year making up for pandemic paused family visits, give your mom a longer hug on her special day. Love, flowers, and the best of health and happiness to every mother, from the new ones just discovering the joys, tax and otherwise, of new parenthood to those gracefully maneuvering their Golden Years while getting some tax-advantaged help from their families.
May 10: Eateries are still recovering from the challenges of operating during a national health crisis. Restaurants closed, then opened, then closed again. Others relied on and have stuck with take-out and deliveries. Whether you're dining in or still getting food brought to your house, remember to tip your server or delivery person.
If a tip isn't included in your food delivery charge, click the image above to calculate how much to tip the person who brought it to you.
As for servers who now are back on the job, remember that your
tips are taxable income. If you worked at least some of March at a job where you got gratuities, you need to account for them today if they came to at least $20 last month. Use
Form 4070 to report your tips today to your employer.
May 16: Before the seasonal shift into summer, take care of spring tax cleaning. Give away clothing and
household goods you no longer use. Your philanthropy could provide you a
charitable tax deduction.
May 23: Kick spring cleaning up a notch. Go beyond housekeeping and house clearing and make those home repairs you've been putting off. Many
home improvements, including
landscaping, could pay off in by increasing your home's basis, which means your profit for tax purposes will be smaller and stay under the amount that's tax-free when you eventually sell your home.
May 27: If you're heading out early for the long Memorial Day weekend that traditionally kicks off summer, be sure to plan for added costs, like the price of getting to your holiday destination. Most of us will hit the highways, so even though gasoline prices have come down a bit, they still will take a bite of our travel budgets. Sorry, it's not enough to get Congress to create a
federal gas tax holiday. And if you're renting your home to incoming tourists, be sure to pay the state and/or local
taxes added to short-term home rentals.
May 30: As you honor military personnel this Memorial Day who made the ultimate sacrifice, don't forget about their families. There are some
tax considerations offered survivors of lost soldiers, sailors, and air crew.
Small Business Tax Calendar: Important
filing, deposit and record keeping dates throughout the year that your company needs to know. You can get more tax calendar information at the IRS'
online calendar page and view the full year's important business and individual tax dates in
IRS Pub. 509.
Very STRANGE that these defenders of Bush tax cuts for the WEALTHY are ignorant of the FACT, rich people don't create the jobs-they OUTSOURCE them overseas, so screw the Wealthy NOW!
Stimulate the middle-class or what is left of it from GOP incompetence, after the investment to middle & poor the economy will be stimulated & credit will be restored as they would be paid off immediately, Small Business will have seed or additional capital to hire & research & invest in their company, rather than HOARD it for interest accumulation from bank accounts for wealthy & Big Corporations. Middle Class & Poor WILL SPEND, we would spend on items that would keep economy going rather than buying just ELITIST priced products that don't stimulate much other than the RepubliCON Elitist items @ outrageous pricing.
Remove ALL American tax payer subsidies to Corporations that are OUTSOURCING American jobs, take property & wealth from those tax evaders & put those Billionaires & Millionaires & Big Corporations CEO's in PRISON for TAX EVASION and NEVER give Amnesty to those rich people AGAIN. How sad we tax payers are imprisoned for tax evasion or lesser crimes, but AMNESTY to wealthy, WHY? Don't they have the money to pay it, if not WHY not? Any American company that has corporation headquarters overseas should NOT be recognized as an American company, that is CROOKED & it is TAX EVASION! Halliburton for example HQ in Dubai!
I challenge any RepubliCON to this debate, YOU WILL LOSE. WHY? Because America has YET to see any rich people put American workers to work that is why we have such a HUGE Deficit and economical collapse, RICH people don't trickle down the wealthy(Reagan SCAM). The CEO's & Top Executives & Investors get rich, but the hourly workers pay has only stagnated or been OUTSOURCED, why then is our job loss reaching 18 million & only less than 3 million created under GOP & Bush for the past 8 years and GOP Big Corporations are still OUTSOURCING. Really patriotic, don't you think? And to hear GOP & Dems say those jobs will never come back, I say B.S, REMOVE the subsidies and TAX those outsourcing corporations, TAX them 80% & prior to allowing a company to file for Bankruptcy, force the TOP salaries to relinquish their pay to a minimum salary of $250,000 while the company recoups. Tax breaks for American Corporations that hire American workers and provide top benefits.
Our economy will come back, ASAP. WHY? RepubliCON run companies would rather LEACH off of the tax payer funding than rely on the pathetic pennies of investment, would we see the real picture of PROFIT vs LOSS.
Posted by: Government Corruption | Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 03:18 PM
Jeff, I've gone through my comments section and I don't have any unposted comments from you. This is the first one that's shown up. I'm sorry you think I'm not posting comments. The only ones I ever disallow are unsupported rants and offensive comments. Maybe there was a glitch in the system. If you want to try again, I'll be on the lookout for your comments. Kay
Posted by: Kay | Friday, August 20, 2010 at 08:40 AM
You don't "really" want the discussion to begin. I have posted twice and you refuse to even allow my comments. Although my comments were correct and I don't think you could dispute them. But they didn't promote the democrat/socialist agenda.
Jeff Day EA
Evansville, IN
Posted by: Jeffrey A Day | Friday, August 20, 2010 at 07:15 AM
For the last 15 years I've worked as a software engineer in various small startups.
Every single one has been started or backed by a wealthy person who had funds to gamble on a risky startup. Most lost their money.
I've never been in a software company that benefited from any government largess.
Taking money that rich people could invest in startups and giving it to the government to be used mostly for retirement pay hurts me.
Posted by: Jim Howard | Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 03:36 PM