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My Personal Finance

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Personal finance is an important part of our life plan, because helps to achieve what we want to achieve and resources involving economic.

My Personal Finance

Being able to give their children opportunities in life or retirement plan. The planning of our personal finances could be defined as the process that helps us to revise our financial situation, determine goals and achievable goals and develop strategies that will guide us toward achieving those goals. However, each person has different needs and goals. [Read more…]

Car Lease Calculator

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A car lease allows us to drive a new vehicle without having to make a large outlay of money to buy a new vehicle. To rent a car, we just have to pay a small sum compared to the value of a new car (with the possibility of buying at the end of the lease) followed by monthly payments until the contract ends.

Car lease

However, there are some difficulties to rent a car, for example, at the end of the lease must return the vehicle if you do not have the money to buy it. You do not own. Over the years, the cost of renting several cars, probably exceed the purchase price of a new or used vehicle. Some rental terms can carry high penalties. [Read more…]

Tax preparation

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United States income tax laws are considered very complicated and tax preparation is the process of preparing taxes returns following the current laws. Tax preparation may be done by a tax preparer with or without the help of new software, but you should choose wisely anyway.

Tax preparation

Tax preparation

60% of people use paid preparers to complete their tax returns according with the federal government. If you are included in this percentage, it’s important to read some information after do it to get started right away therefore you can have a successful and satisfying tax return experience.

Collect and organize your information

Remember that you can make the tax preparation by your own but also you can hire a tax preparer; however you need to collect some papers and you will need to provide your preparer important information that can be directly known from you by answering a questionnaire. In one way or another you will need a few days to gather and organize your information.

Get your receipts together

Get your receipts together for various deductible expenses such as medical costs not covered by insurance or any other health plan not reimbursed, job-related and investment-related expenses, property taxes, etc.

Choose a good preparer

The best way to find a preparer is by asking to your family or friends to make a referral and searching reliable advisors. You need to be sure that the selected person has a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) and is authorized to prepare federal income tax returns.

Some institutions recommend that your tax return preparer should have participated in a voluntary program that offers good training about federal tax law, basic tax filing and ethics. And remember that tax preparers fees will vary depending on where you live.

Gather your information returns

You should have received various types of information returns that you need to complete the tax preparation. For each form, you may verify if the information matches with your own records. The most common forms are: W-2 if you have a job, SSA-1099 if you are receiving Social Security benefits, for student loan interest 1098-E, 1099-MISC for nonemployee compensation paid to independent contractors and schedule K-1s from corporations or partnerships.

Schedule an appointment

Consider that the sooner you meet with your tax preparer, the sooner you can start the complete process and if you need an extension you will get it without any problem. Besides, if you want to anticipate a refund to receive your money quickly, it is especially important to act promptly.

W-4 and Dependents

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Starting a new job can be stressful in itself. With so many new things to learn, one of the dreadful things that you have to start getting used to is learning to pay your taxes. The W-4 form that is the Employee withholding allowance certificate, that your employer will give you to fill will be a documentation that your employer will withhold a specified amount from your paycheck which will be paid as income tax. The form filling is pretty straightforward that is until you come upon section five, which will ask the total number of allowances you will be claiming.

W-4 and Dependents

The W-4 form that is the Employee withholding allowance certificate, that your employer will give you to fill will be a documentation that your employer will withhold a specified amount from your paycheck which will be paid as income tax.

To fill this you will have to look at the upper part of the form where you will find the Personal allowances worksheet. Each allowance that you will claim will reduce the amount that your employer will withhold from your paycheck. Now stop before you claim as many as allowances that are allowed, because obviously that is not allowed. Go through the following steps:

If no claims you as a dependent, then you must claim one allowance. Like if you are young and applying for a par time job or an internship where you are required to fill out the W4 form, you cannot claim an allowance as, your parents or guardians probably have you claimed as their dependent.

In case you are single and have one job or if you are married with a spouse who is not currently working, you can claim second allowance. If your wages from a second job or if your spouse earns less than One thousand and five hundred dollars or equal to that amount you can claim second allowance. Basically if there is only one source of stable income, you can claim second allowance.

You can claim one allowance if you have a spouse, however if you have a second job that pays good or a spouse with a stable income, you might not claim any allowance.
If you have a dependent other than that your spouse like a child or a relative that is dependent on you financially, you can claim one allowance. It must be noted that any pets you may keep may take up your expense, but are not allowed to claim allowance on them.

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