☀️ Hello 🌞 June! ☀️
We are so happy to see your radiant face, bringing us the start of summer. Some brightness and warmth and a sunny attitude are definitely what we need to fully recover from tax season, even one that wasn't that bad.
via GIPHY
June 1: Summer conjures dreams of lazy beach days. But for full-time coastal residents, June is less welcome. Today is the start of the Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico hurricane season. While there's a low pressure in the Eastern Gulf, at least we made it to opening day without an official system forming. That gives us time to prepare for hurricane season, a chance some folks got recently thanks to special sales tax holidays.
Uncle Sam's official forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center expect 2023 to bring 12 to 17 named storms, with five to nine possibly becoming hurricanes. As many as four of those storms could reach major status, which is category 3, 4 or 5 with winds of 111 mph or higher. Regardless of the count, it only takes one to wreak havoc. The countdown clock below can help you keep track of how many more days you have to worry about tracking any size or type of tropical storms.
You also might want to check out the ol' blog's special Storm Warnings.
These multi-page collections of posts offer tax advice on preparing for, recovering from and helping those who sustain damages from the many ways that that weather goes wild. That includes claiming uninsured losses from a major natural disaster as an itemized tax deduction.
June 5: With school out, working parents need to make child care arrangements. Consider day camps. Not only do they offer some supervision of your kiddos while you're at the office, the activities' costs also count toward claiming the child and dependent care credit.
June 12: Do you work as a server at a restaurant or at any other establishment where gratuities from customers are part of your compensation? I hope you got lots of financial thanks for doing your job well, but don't forget that those tips are taxable income.
Whether you're dining in or, still COVID leery and getting food delivered to your home, if a tip isn't included on your restaurant or delivery bill, click the image above to calculate how much to tip the person who brought it to you.
And you, as the server or delivery person, must account for those tips. If you got at least $20 in gratuities in May, you must report the amount by today (it's usually the 10th, but since that was Saturday, it moves to the next business day) by using
Form 4070 to let your employer the total of the tips you took in last month.
June 14: Happy Flag Day! It's not a day-off-work federal holiday, but
Flag Day has been an official day to celebrate the Star-Spangled Banner since
1949. If you need to buy a U.S. flag to fly today, you also might get a tax break. Several states
exempt the national symbol from sales tax. Check with your
state's tax department to see if you can save on your patriotic display.
June 15: It's Tax Day, this time for
U.S. citizens or resident aliens living and working abroad, as well as military personnel stationed outside the United States.
This mid-June day also is the deadline for the second
estimated tax payment for the 2023 tax year.
June 18: Happy Father's Day!
Dad might not say so, but he appreciates being recognized, so take time today to let him know you care. And if your father is getting on up in years, take the time when you visit to make sure he doesn't need some
added help from you. If you provide Pop a little, or even a lot of assistance, there's a chance you could get some help from
a couple of tax credits.
June 19: It's
Juneteenth. This date marks when Texans finally received word that all slaves were free. And although it is our newest federal holiday, it is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
June 21: It's official at 10:58 a.m. Eastern Time.
Summer is here, arriving on this longest day of the year.
Many charitable groups help people cope with the heat. If you itemize, your
gift to such IRS-qualified nonprofits could be tax deductible on next year's tax return.
June 26: If you missed spring cleaning, summer's also a good time to determine what you can do without. If that includes clothing or household items, you also can donate those and
claim the fair market value of the items.
June 30: If you got an extension to file back in April, or by June 15 if you're a taxpayer living overseas, remember that
Free File, the online preparation and electronic filing web page for eligible taxpayers created by the IRS' partnership with the Free File Alliance, is still operational.
You can prepare and e-file as its name says at no cost if your adjusted gross income (AGI) is $73,000 or less, regardless of your
filing status. You should be able to find a software that works for you from the
seven tax prep companies that are participating.
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.
"But the compact of living in a society requires that sometimes we get things (and elected officials) we don't want. Here's to the day we can all afford our own private islands! ;-)"
LOL - I totally agree!
Posted by: Amy | Wednesday, October 06, 2010 at 06:21 PM
"And I'm very leery of, actually frightened by, people who make up their minds and never listen to the other side. Things change. Circumstances change. Needs change. People change. Being able to listen to differing opinions is crucial to being flexible when change needs to be made. "
I totally agree. However, I have met people who actively solicit a diversity of opinions but then disregard them completely if they don't match their own. In other words, they have all the appearance of open mindedness, think of themselves as such, but the reality is they've made up their mind long before you've met them. They are looking only for a confirmation of their opinions from others.
And truthfully, those situations were by far the worst I've been in a work situation. I've been subtly punished for the "wrong" answer (by my freely stating my opinion) and then alternately made responsible when I didn't speak up after figuring out the score. (It's an "open" environment after all.) It would not completely shock me to find out that perhaps Obama runs his office that way and it's the reason he's having a hard time keeping staff.
In fairness, I have never met Bush or Obama. All have is 3rd hand reports about them, which always tell me more about the person writing or speaking than it does about the object being written or spoken about.
I do know that Bush was the media's devil of the last 8 years for not being "open". However, I noticed his turn over was very low and he did manage to attract a fair amount of minority help, especially in Condoleezza Rice. He may not have been "open", but it may have set a consistent set of rules that reasonably competent people were willing to work under.
On the other hand, Obama has been hailed for his openness but he doesn't seem to generate any deep loyalty on a personal level from his staff. He also doesn't waiver much from standard Democratic or economic thinking and seems to offer few really alternative ideas.
Again, it's important to say that without spending time with them personally, on their staff, it's really pretty much impossible for me to judge. I'm just throwing out the other side to the mass thinking of both gentlemen, perhaps making both of them people who put their pants on one leg at a time. ;)
Posted by: Amy | Wednesday, October 06, 2010 at 06:19 PM
As for the services we don't want, welcome to living in a society. We don't all need or want the same things at the same time, but we or someone we know or are related to might. If not now, perhaps one day. Life has a funny way of deciding things for us that way. I wish I could direct my taxes to go only for certain things; many of them likely would not be services you want or need. But the compact of living in a society requires that sometimes we get things (and elected officials) we don't want. Here's to the day we can all afford our own private islands! ;-)
Posted by: Kay | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 09:37 PM
Amy, maybe it's the reporter in me, but I like seeing all sides of an issue. No change once, doesn't mean no change ever. And I'm very leery of, actually frightened by, people who make up their minds and never listen to the other side. Things change. Circumstances change. Needs change. People change. Being able to listen to differing opinions is crucial to being flexible when change needs to be made. Kay
Posted by: Kay | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 09:34 PM
"One thing I like about Obama is the fact that he likes to keep a devil's advocate or two around. Even if he isn't persuaded by their points of view, he at least gets them."
Sounds disingenuous to me. What's the point of hearing alternatives if you are never persuaded to act on them? Surround yourself with "yes" men and get at the point. At least everyone knows the score in that situation. ;)
"Also, the prez noted that to cover the cost of keeping the low tax rates for the wealthy could mean fewer government services enjoyed by middle- and lower-income taxpayers."
What if we don't want the services? Hmmm... ;)
Posted by: Amy | Tuesday, October 05, 2010 at 07:30 PM