Saturday, 5 November 2016

How To Get Help With Taxes

By Dennis Myers


The tax code has many loopholes that taxpayers and accountants normally try to exploit. For instance, there is legal tax deferment and avoidance. It is important to note that there is a very thin line between legal tax avoidance and tax evasion, which is illegal. To ensure you do not commit fraud, it is crucial you get help with taxes from a competent professional. Tax preparation is a complex process that requires a person to have knowledge of the different tax rates applicable on different types of incomes earned by different types of taxpayers.

There are numerous places where you can get tax assistance. The first and most obvious is from a CPA. Certified public accountants are well-trained and experienced in all the issues surrounding the US tax code, so you can expect them to give you advise you can count on. The second place you can get tax assistance is from a tax lawyer. These legal professionals have studied law and majored in laws touching on the tax code of the country.

While advise obtained online may be useful, you should always counter-check the information. When searching for information online, you should only trust reliable websites with a large readership and a great reputation to avoid making stupid mistakes based on inaccurate information. Some sites may also have omissions and factual errors.

Employees usually pay payroll tax, which their employer withholds before writing their paycheck. Self employed individuals pay a number of taxes including, excise, sales and income tax. Corporations pay corporate tax, excise tax and sales tax, where applicable. Dividends and interest income are usually subject to withholding tax.

The corporate tax rate is usually fixed and only applies to corporations, both public and private. Payroll tax is usually tiered to ensure low-income earners pay a lower tax rate than high-income earners. The tax bracket your income is subject to depends on the amount of money you earn monthly or annually.

As you may already know, there are different types of taxpayers and they qualify for different types of tax benefits. For instance, homeowners who buy EPA rated furnaces and air conditioners can deduct the expense from their tax bill. However, it is important to seek professional advise before applying for this tax benefit.

It is not easy to accurately prepare tax returns. This explains why millions of taxpayers miss the filing deadline every year, or wait till the last day to file. Fortunately, there are tax preparation software applications that can make the entire process easy. If you want to prepare and file your own returns, you may want to consider using these programs. Otherwise, you should hire a competent tax accountant.

Knowing the tax code is a basic requirement if you plan on doing your own taxes. Unfortunately, even the most qualified professionals do not know the entire tax code off-head. However, they know a lot of things that you do not know, so they can always be of assistance to you. They can assist small businesses, large corporations, partnerships and individual taxpayers to compute their tax bill and prepare their returns. That said, the law requires every taxpayer to file their returns within the specified timelines.




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