If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The April 15th tax deadline is upon us, and taxes are the foremost personal finance subject we tend to think about this time of year. However, there are bigger picture financial topics that taxes can make us aware of, such as retirement. Here's a look at taxes in conjunction with retirement issues.
Are you receiving a tax refund this year? Here are some tips to help you effectively allocate this money to improve your personal finances!
Your financial literacy begins with an appreciation of this irrefutable data. It provides you with a clearly defined action plan: Dump your broker or adviser who claims to be able to "beat the market."
You don't have to have an offshore account to reduce your taxes! There are plenty of legal loopholes that you are probably not taking advantage of.
If you're planning to file an extension because you might owe taxes, you should know that an extension only extends the deadline for the forms to be filed. It is not an extension to pay your any taxes you owe.
Legally enforceable documents are the only way to try to ensure that your pet will be cared for according to your wishes. There are essentially three ways you can make provisions for your pet: a will, a pet trust or a pet protection agreement.
Money was always mysterious to me. As a child, the subject of money was only reserved for 'grown folks.' I knew that my father, a career officer in the United States Army, left home every day for some place called work. Still, I never knew how money was earned or how it affected my life.
People everywhere hate taxes. What makes the United States distinctive, I think, is our insistence on collecting so much of our tax revenue in a distinctly unpleasant way. No stealthy value-added taxes for us! We're going to do it the hard way.
Dealing with debt has two costs. The one is the immediate cost of whatever solution you choose. Think about that as the program cost. The second is the future cost of making that decision.
Most people are afraid of change. They want affirmation from "what everyone else is doing" and don't want to spend the time and effort to keep on educating themselves. I've been as guilty of that as anyone.
By now you've heard me say that 75 percent of all taxpayers receive a refund (according to public IRS data it's even higher this year), so what happens if you are in the other 25 percent and owe?
Unless you're a student of history or are planning a Mediterranean vacation, you may never have given the island of Cyprus much thought. Then suddenly, it dominated the headlines. What does a banking crisis in a small and far-off land mean to you?
For me, the idea of "leaning in" is not only applicable to my professional endeavors, but also my personal goals. In the past year, while I co-founded this start-up, raised a round of capital, and worked to build the company, I also made a big decision to become a mom, on my own.
In the next couple of months, millions of American teens will be graduating from high school. There was a time when this meant many kids would go off to college, get a degree and start a career.
The classic advice of cutting back on lattes is the best example of personal-finance "experts" run amok. Not only does the advice not work -- most people fail to cut back on their caffeine because it's an important pleasure in their day -- but even if it did work, $3 a day doesn't add up to much!
Most taxpayers assume that those who get the most money back are homeowners, business owners, and non-profit organizations. But lo and behold, renters are a strong competitor! Most of them just don't know it yet.
