One of the common myths surrounding taxes is that “students are exempt” from paying taxes. If you have a student in your house – or in college – who is gainfully employed, they need to file an income tax return. Regardless of their student status they are subject to taxes on the income they earned. Additionally, when it comes to your student/child, if he or she is employed the myth is that you can’t still claim him or her as a dependent. If you have provided more than 50% of your child’s support he or she still qualifies as your dependent and you can continue to claim them on your tax return.

Another myth is that if you’re older than 55-years-old you can sell your home and reap the benefits tax free. That was the case many years ago, but is no longer true. In the past if you were older than 55 you were allowed to exclude up to $125,000 in gains as a one time deduction if the home you sold was your primary residence. Currently, your age is not a factor as an exclusion.

Another myth that many individuals fall into is the “I’m married I have to file married filing jointly” status. While in many cases it is more advantageous to file this way, there are instances in which using a married filing separately status could be to your benefit. One of the times when the married filing separately status could work to your benefit is if you and your spouse have disparate incomes and one of you has a high amount of medical expenses and deductions. Because of the limits imposed on the limit of medical deduction expenses compared to income, filing jointly could limit access to these deductions. Trying to meet the threshold for medical deductions with a high income are difficult to meet.

If you’ve ever owned a home, you can’t qualify for the first time home buyer credit, right? Myth again. Until September 2010, the federal government offered a first-time home buyer credit of up to $8,000 to first time home buyers. The way you qualified for this credit was by having had no ownership interest in a principal residence for three years prior to closing on a newly purchased home. Another way to qualify for a first time home buyer credit was to have owned and lived in a home as your primary residence for five years. When you purchased a new home you could have been eligible to apply for a credit of up to $6,500.

Because filing taxes is such a complicated undertaking, you certainly don’t want to fall prey to myths for filing taxes. Keep in mind that when you’re looking to prepare taxes it’s best to look to a professional tax preparer for your tax resolution issues.

Experiencing tax problems with the IRS? Contact Guardian Tax Resolutions. The Guardian will help you resolve your tax issues with the IRS.

What if the tax filing deadlines roll around and you just don’t have the money to pay your tax obligations? What do you do? The first thing to do is to file anyway. You simply can’t avoid your obligations to the IRS and they will file penalties against you if you don’t file and don’t pay your tax obligations. If you at least file your taxes you will avoid a “failure to file” penalty. If you owe more money than you have access to, at least pay what you can. Paying something will at least show the IRS you are making the effort and will also cut down on the interest and penalties that will be assessed in the long run. The lower your up front balance, the less you will have to pay later on and you will make yourself a less likely target for an IRS audit.

Are there any friends or family who you can tap into to help you pay your IRS bill? If there is a chance you can borrow from a family member or friend, they will probably charge you less interest than the IRS will on the balance of money owed. If you can borrow from them and work out a payment arrangement, that will be a good way to address your IRS balance. If you have any credit cards you can use to pay the balance that could be another option. Keep in mind though what your interest rates are and see if it is lower than what the IRS will charge. There are people who take out lines of credit or refinance their mortgages to pay off IRS balances. This is something you will want to talk to a tax professional about.

Talking to the IRS is a very important step to take, actually this should be one of the first phone calls that you make. Talk to an IRS agent and see if you can enter into an installment plan with them. They may be willing to let you make payments over time against the balance owed. For taxpayers who owe less than $25,000 there is an option to go online and complete an installment agreement application. Individuals who find themselves in dire financial straits that don’t appear to have an end in sight, should talk with the IRS about a temporary collection suspension action. Penalties and interest will still accrue against what you owe but halting collection attempts will give you some breathing room.

Attempting to make payment arrangements with the IRS may not work in your favor and if not, there is an option to file an Offer in compromise. An OIC is not a best case scenario as it is expensive to file and the IRS typically rejects OIC agreements. These forms are not inexpensive to file and typically require the services of an attorney. If the compromise is rejected you are still liable for the price of the form’s filing and the amount you owed plus penalties and interest. Don’t consider this option until you have exhausted your other options and having talked to your tax professional.

There are many options from which you can choose, the only option you can’t choose is to ignore your obligation to the IRS. There is no way to avoid the money you owe by ignoring letters and phone calls from IRS agents. You should immediately meet with a tax professional and work with him or her on ways to not only avoid an IRS audit but with suggestions on how to meet your tax obligations.

Experiencing tax problems with the IRS? Contact Guardian Tax Resolutions. The Guardian will help you resolve your tax issues with the IRS.

Regrettably there is no sure-fire way of keeping away from a crime such as identity theft, however there are specific ideas to prevent identity theft which you can really use to your advantage and that will help ensure that you are as protected from this crime as possible.

By making it more difficult to have your identity stolen will be more than worth it in the long run, as hopefully this will never happen to you. If you know someone who has dealt with this before, you’ll learn just how major an issue it truly is. There are many essential steps to prevent identity theft in particular that you will need to be aware of, and that will be discussed for you in more detail here.

Steps

One of the commonest methods a person commits identity theft is by dumpster-diving, which means dealing with people’s trash and dumpsters and looking through it in order to find personal information which they can use to commit this crime. Shredding document is also great step to do.

Another of the most basic steps to prevent identity theft is to destroy digital data. If you decide to have a new computer, you will want to ensure that you destroy all the information on the old computer, rather than just throwing it in the garbage. It is one of the most essential steps to prevent identity theft because if somebody found your old computer they could simply gather personal data and use it to steal your identity.

These steps to prevent identity theft are more essential than you probably understand, and will help make sure that you stay away from the identity theft crime as much as possible. Identity theft is one of the worst and most generally committed crimes in North America these days, and is one that is going to be very difficult for you to deal with if it ever does happen.

There are many identity theft victims who have been left helpless, thousands of dollars in debt or more, and who really need to get back on their feet themselves, even though it is really not at all their fault that this happened to them.

Among the first steps to prevent identity theft that you need to take is to shred document. You can use office paper shredder as your best paper shredders when you want to shred important document in your office.

According to the latest numbers, the FTC received over 250,000 complaints about identity theft in 2010. That are just numbers reported to the FTC. Identity thefts that are reported to the FTC only represent a small portion of total identity thefts in America. Statistics report that there are over 10 million cases of identity theft in 2010. So yes, identity theft is something you should definitely worry about. However, up to an extent, identity theft can be mitigated by taking precautions. Below are tips to help protect you from identity and credit theft. Follow this guide and it will save you a huge headache later on in life. Yes it is true that you will never completely shield yourself against identity theft. But by following these steps, you can definitely decrease your risk by a large amount.

1. Be wary of people lurking near you. These are people who like to always glance at what you are doing. Also, be wary of people who are close to you when working and cover your information that you enter into ATM machines and laptops. The place that I am always wary of is public libraries. Since it is such a huge space and all kinds of people allowed in, it is especially unsafe

2. Make sure to completely destroy all digital data. Shred paper documents containing any information about your accounts. Thieves have been known to retrieve sensitive information from recycle cans. In the same manner, if you want to get rid of your computer, make sure that you thoroughly erase all data and also try to break the harddrive, if possible. When I give away stuff or sell hard drives, I always make sure to do a software wipe at least twice over.

3. Make sure to never leave your digital widgets (such as laptops and phones) unguarded. That means they should always have a strong password and be locked when it is not in front of you. Internet access is ubiquitous so computer hackers can hack into your device from practically anywhere if your devices are unsecured. You must always have an encrypted password for your network at home. It should be protected with a firewall to prevent security intrusions. Hackers are always on looking for low-security home networks to steal information from. Make sure to secure your data-sensitive apps on your phone with a password also. There are apps for that.

4. Use an alarm system for your house and car. They are very good at deterring criminals as the sound of an alarm going off will turn everyone’s attention on them. Plus, alarm systems are too troublesome to disarm.

5. Get signed up for a credit monitoring service such as IdentityGuard. They will notify you via e-mail or text of any changes in your credit profile. Sometimes these services also give you a free monthly credit score. Albiet, they are not your FICO scores, but they are darn close. Ask your bank about the fraud protection they offer because you will need it; if not now then some time in the future. I guarantee it.

Cases of identity theft are only growing each year. As technology progresses, identity thieves have more tools to use at their arsenal. As so, we need to be careful with our identity. If you take the tips above to heart and take action, you can greatly reduce the risk of you becoming a victim of identity theft.

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