Tag Archives: taxes

Make a List and Check it Twice to get Ahead of Taxes

Leave a reply
Organize taxes to keep good credit scores

Organize taxes to keep good credit scores

With less than a month before Tax Day, it’s harder to get ahead but not yet impossible and there are a whole host of reasons to not wait for an extension. If you have procrastinated up to this point but want to get your taxes done and your refund in hand sooner, the experts at Equifax have some great tips for pushing forward to tax success in the new article, “

Five Tips to Jumpstart Filing Your Taxes.”

While the days are fewer, there is still time to gather up your forms and paperwork neatly and set out to either do or have someone do your taxes for you. But it will take organization and an investment of time (and possibly money, if you need help from software or a professional) to get started. First of all, set a goal or a deadline so you have a reason to start working and write it down. Do a little each day so that gathering receipts and filling out forms is progress that can be tracked rather than a mountain of work. And then don’t be afraid to ask for help – taxes are daunting and while it’s possible to do them yourself, it’s also possible to build a house yourself piece by piece – but it can be a lot easier and more precisely completed to get a professional homebuilder to do it for you.

To learn more, including tips about taxes,

credit scores and everything else personal finance, check in with free expert advice from Equifax.

Avoid the Ghost of Taxes Past by Filing on Time

Leave a reply
There are many benefits to filing taxes on time

There are many benefits to filing taxes on time

While we all want to keep as much of our own money as we can, deferring

taxes is a costly mistake. The cost of deferring payment is explored by Eva Rosenberg on the Equifax Personal Finance Blog in the article, “

Filing Taxes: Pitfalls of Procrastination.” The article is half tax tips and half horror stories of people suffering avoidable penalties when they could have easily prepared and scheduled time with a professional in the nine months of tax return filing season.

There is certainly a danger in the false sense of security you can get from always thinking you can get an extension. As time passes along, it is harder to recover your numbers from the previous year and often things get misplaced and then the extended filing date, usually October 15, sneaks up on you. If you miss that date, the penalties start adding up. One of the examples has a lazy tax filer faced with late-filing penalties as high as 25 percent for not getting around to digging up a single piece of information.

If you are paid on W-2s where the correct amount of withholding is removed, you should still be sure to file. Not only will this make sure you aren’t sent a bill by the

IRS, but by filing you also ensure you get your full refund. This is especially important to keep in mind because the IRS keeps your refund if you allow it to sit unclaimed for three years.

There are other horror stories about being lazy when it comes to taxes and how to avoid them in the full article on the

Equifax Personal Finance Blog. The blog also has tons of useful information when it comes to your money, from taxes to insurance and beyond.