Last year, a Boston-area high-tech company saw its stock plunge from a record high of $58.75 on January 20, to a low of $1.13 exactly 11 months later in November. One employee, who chose to remain anonymous for this article, exercised 1,000 options at $10 a share when the stock reached its peak. With April 16 nipping at her heels, she still owns the shares. Imagine her terror upon learning that the spread of $48.75 multiplied by the 1,000 shares - a total of $48,750 - is subject to a parallel tax system called the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, at a rate of up to 28 percent. Even though her ... view article details

Most of us loathe the very idea of doing our U.S. personal income taxes, not because we expect to get fleeced each April 15 (or 16) but simply because we don't know an adjusted gross income from a standard deduction. For the many tax code illiterates among us, Salary.com has combed through the Internal Revenue Service website, taking inspiration from Sarah Young Fisher and Susan Shelly's book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance, to come up with a checklist that may help simplify your tax-filing experience. Taxable and nontaxable income To get things started with the very basics, bel... view article details

How Will Expiring Tax Cuts Affect You? It has been just a few blessed weeks since April 15, when we all emerged from stacks of 1099s and W-2s and declared ourselves ready to forget about taxes for another year. Not so fast. The tax cuts put in place during the previous administration are heading for expiration at the end of this year if Congress doesn't act. Almost everyone agrees that at least some of the cuts should be extended, but the right and the left have profound disagreements about how to proceed. So what does this mean for you? While you should always rely on a tax professio... view article details

For a lot of us, filing taxes is only slightly more fun than having a fender bender, and not quite as exciting as a major dental procedure. No wonder we put off wrestling with the 1040 form.But even at this late date, there's plenty of help out there to get your tax return filed correctly, and on time--whether you have a professional prepare it or do it yourself.1. Don't rush 'Do not compromise the tax return by rushing to get it completed,' says Mark Steber, chief tax officer at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, based in Parsippany, N. J. 'A lot of people do this -- and they leave money on... view article details

Dear Annette, I've been working on my income taxes, and my files are getting pretty big. How much of this stuff do I have to keep? Form 1-too-many Dear Form, When I found out a few years ago that Dickie and I were going to prison for failing to pay taxes on three years' worth of his a income from selling cosmetics door-to-door, my first thoughts were, What should I pack? Will there be mints under my pillow? Will there be someone to do the floors and bath? And why does an undocumented Maltese owe taxes in the first place? (After all, he does have his shots.) But I quickly realized incarceration... view article details

Mitt Romney is very rich.That Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is wealthy comes as no surprise. But the Republican presidential candidate offered up some details last week, with the release of two years’ worth of tax returns. The Romneys -- like many taxpayers -- received a tax refund for their 2010 filing. But at $1.6 million, their refund was slightly higher than the IRS-reported average of $3,003.In 2010, Romney and his wife totaled $21.6 million in income and paid slightly more than $3 million in federal income taxes. That's good for an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent, acco... view article details

A few years ago, the Internal Revenue Service challenged the tax deductions a college professor took for losses he reported in his business as a book author.'They came in and said, 'OK, prove to us it's a business,'' recalled Joseph Newpol, a certified public accountant and tax attorney who advised the professor on how to deal with the IRS's scrutiny.'We showed them the history of his book writing activity and demonstrated that he didn't have income for several years,' recalled Newpol, who is also a professor in the tax and personal financial planning department at Bentley College in Waltham, ... view article details

An Inside Look at Why the Rich Get Richer & the Poor Stay Put Why the Rich Get Richer & the Poor Struggle Numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau earlier this month confirm what many have known for a long time: The gap between the rich and the poor in this country is growing ever wider. And while we examined the numbers behind the income gap last week, we heard your requests for an actual explanation of why it exists loud and clear. So while the numbers don't tell us why income inequality continues to climb, the experts will. Technology -- The Double-Edged Sword Just as technology has ... view article details

When my wife and I began to gather receipts and other scraps of paper for our taxes this year, I called our long-time accountant with a routine request for an organizer to help us make sense of all the numbers. 'I already sent it to you,' the accountant hissed. But no matter how disorganized my wife and I may be, we knew we had not received that vital piece of mail.I called her back a few weeks later with a follow-up query. 'I don't really have time to handle individual tax returns this year. I've got all the business I need,' she snarled. 'I can't find any trained people to help me.'And so, w... view article details

Are you looking for a new role in the finance and accounting spheres? A promising statistic job seekers should consider is that the unemployment rate for specialized roles in these realms range well below the national average at 0.8% - 3.3%, according to the Q2 2018 quarterly report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. With such low unemployment rates in these sectors, there is a labor shortage of experienced candidates. As the pool of unemployed talent continues to narrow, employers struggle to compete in the modern war for talent. For qualified job seekers, however, the labor shortage sug... view article details