Tax plan question
Annegriet
6 years ago
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Got a tough question about the $6500 tax credit
Comments (6)I'm in a similar situation and was told that I would need to get a county official to provide me with a letter stating that certificates of occupancy are not issued in my area. The IRS could not tell me just which county official to go to but, after checking around a bit, I found out that the septic permitting office in my county was providing "no certificate of occupancy" letters. So if you had to get a septic permit (or any other sort of permit), I would check with that permitting office first. If that doesn't work, try your county commissioners. As for "proof" of when you actually move in, the IRS can't tell you what evidence they will actually accept - but they will tell you that the "burden of proof" is on the taxpayer. Apparently, whichever IRS agent reviews your tax filing just gets to decide whether the evidence you present seems convincing enough to him/her. But if the agent decides against you and denies your claim for the credit, you CAN appeal the denial so there is at least some hope you won't be denied willy-nilly. Still, it seems likely that the more proof you provide of your move-in date, the more likely it is that the IRS agent will be satisified. So: 1) File a change of address with the post office and provide copies of the change of address forms. 2) Officially (in writing) notifiy your employers of your new address and keep a copy of your letter. 3) Change your voter registration. 4) If you had been claiming your house in town as your homestead, contact the taxing office and officially relinquish it. Than claim your new home as your new homestead as of your move-in date. Even if you live in a state where homestead exemption is automatic, you can still file an affidavit in the county land records stating that you are claiming such-and-such an address as your homestead. And you can send a letter to the taxing authorities for both your old home and your new home stating that you are changing your homestead. 5) Change your home and automobile insurance policies. Automobile policy rates are usually set, at least in part, on where your car is "garaged" so changing that address will be further proof of your move-in date. 6) Since you need water and electricity to build, you've probably had most of the utilities hooked up and in your name just about forever. But if you were planning to get cable service or DSL or a land line telephone or anything like that, go ahead and get it hooked up before the 30th and keep the records. 7) Start having the local newspaper delivered to your new address... even if you only sign up for a three month subscription. Nobody has a newspaper delivered to an address where they aren't yet living! 8) Hire a moving van - or at least rent a U-Haul - to move your belongings. And keep the records. 9) Arrange for weekly trash pick up at your new home. 10) If you still have a portajohn on the premises, contact the portapotty people and have them pick it up and send you a final bill. (Nobody keeps a portapotty after they've moved in!) 11) If you still have a dumpster on your property for construction debris, get it hauled away and get your final bill. The IRS is not going to believe you have moved in if you still have a dumpster sitting in the yard! 12) Throw yourself a housewarming party and invite everybody by email. Be sure to indicate on the invitation that you are celebrating the fact that you have FINALLY MOVED IN to your new home. Keep copies of your invitations and the guest list. Every guest is a potential witness for you in the event you wind up having to appeal a denial of the credit. Think also in terms of providing evidence that you have MOVED OUT of your old home. Eg., If you were planning to sell (or rent) your old home, start advertizing that it is available as of May 1. And keep records of your efforts to sell or rent the old place. Or, if a family member is going to live in the old house once you move out, have them sign a dated rental agreement even if you only charge them $10 per year in rent. And have them change all the utilities at the old house over to their name immediately. Or, if the old house will sit empty for awhile (like us, you may be planning to spruce up the old house a bit before putting it on the market), have the utilities shut off until you are ready to start working on it. That will help prove you are no longer living at the old address. Besides, why pay for utility services you're not using. And, keep calling the IRS to ask about this issue. The more calls they get to their help-line asking questions about this specific issue, the more likely it is that the IRS will develop guidelines to give their agents so that there will be some consistency in how agents deal with those of us making a claim for the credit under our somewhat unusual circumstances....See Moreyear end tax planning - with investment or retirement plan....
Comments (4)If you sold a stock(s) earlier in the year at substantial profit and you have a stock or stocks that is/are worth less now than when you bought it/them, and you don't consider it wise to continue to hold it/them, perhaps sell it/them before the year end to offset some of the capital gain that you made on the one that was sold earlier. In some jurisdictions you can carry a loss back a couple of years, or forward, to offset capital gains made in earlier years - or later. I'm not big on buying and selling stocks: I've bought some (quality ones) twenty and thirty years ago that I still hold. If a stock that you own has a history of volatile pricing, and you think that the price is unusually high right now, you might choose to sell now, with a view to buying back later, at a lower price (and there'll be two commissions to pay, in any case). Trouble with that is - how far is down? Maybe later the train will have left the station before you choose to get on. Not many of us have wings to enable us to catch it at a station down the line. Hope this helps. Come back to ask us more specific questions, if you like, as it's hard to know what fields of the broad financial system that you are interested to explore at the moment. Stockbrokers like to have you trade ... ... for if you just buy and hold for a long time, they don't make any money in the interim. Except that one broker that I use charges me $125./year for carrying an inactive account and my broker says that there's nothing he can do about it - I'm going to close it, as others don't. Some years ago one broker wasn't charging me an annual fee to administer my self-directed tax-deferred retirement account, but when I had to reverse it into the payout (and no more inputs) section, they were starting to charge an administration fee. So I asked around and found a couple of other carriers who were willing to administer it without an annual fee - carriers whom I was less enthused about using, but I didn't feel it necessary to disclose that piece of information to the current carrier. The carrier said that they could administer it without a fee, as well - and have been doing so, for the last seven years. As a matter of fact, they'll be sending me my annual cheque in a couple of weeks. Guess I'll have to start thinking about what to do with the money, huh? Yeah, right - just before Christmas? Learn how to manage your money effectively, for you, rather than the other guys - it's an interesting hobby ... **that pays well**!! If you don't choose to boss your money - it'll boss you. ole joyful...See MoreTax rebate plan
Comments (64)Frances00, This probably should go under another thread but...I din't even think of illegal immigration. It would be nice to start a thread to see if we can get posters from EVERY state & tell us specific problems their state faces. Illegal immigration is of no or very little concern in the NE (my state is not affected much). We actually welcome immigrants. ok, I understand that too much of anything is not good for anybody-lol. I understand that the illegals is where it becomes too much. Immigrants provide good, cheap labor. No, they do not take jobs away from Americans. Not in this part of the country, anyway. Americans do NOT want to do manual labor, trust me. MY BIL has a businees & he would gladly employ an immigrant. He claims they work hard, they pay taxes & they deserve to send their kids to schools & have healthcare. The reason they don't have healthcare is because they don't make enough to afford it, or they work in the landscaping, or business that don't give them benefits... However, we have a unique problem in our state. We are bogged down by legal emigration. We have many people taking advantage of the state's wealthy give-away programs, therefore we have more people emigrating here & going on welfare & getting free healthcare. Regular, poor working stiffs don't qualify for the state's help, but fresh families arriving do. Go figure. We used to be a terrific MFG state. Now all the MFG moved out abroad or went out of business. While the factories were operating, we were recruiting mostly non-English speaking labor (Czeks, Poles, Puerto-ricans...etc). NOW we are stuck with people who don't speak English & don't work. The Europeans assimilated & moved on to other jobs & most became quite succesful. Many of them are small business owners. However, most of our Latino population(puerto-recans are US citizens) lagged behind, not learning the language, unskilled, hence not employable & more of their families keep coming to join them. They are eligible for all the benefits US has to offer. They tend to have large families, which burden the system. The schools are overcrowded, The kids are not disciplined etc. I guess when you have a lot of kids, it's hard to keep track of them. We keep plunking more money into certain schools without any progrees. After all, parents should start at home... We have a mess. Not speaking English their employability is limitied & in low wage jobs. Why should they work if our state is very generous? They are getting more free money than they would make working. Unfortunately, all our decent paying jobs have been outsourced. It's the Economy (lack of good paying jobs)that breeds laziness. If i had to work for $7/hr, I would prefer getting a larger FREE check from the state myself. The politicians really need to do soemthing about our good jobs going overseas!!! It's one thing to have a hard working population utilizing public schools, healthcare etc, and another thing to be paying for services to legal emigration that will never be productive... We'll switch our in-emigration with your immigration ;)...See Morestimulus plan tax credit for window upgrade
Comments (1)Good luck waiting for the government to change it. The next step is to move to 8 regions rather then 4 which maybe will help?...See MoreAnnegriet
6 years agoUser
6 years agoElmer J Fudd
6 years agoMichael
6 years agochisue
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoRita / Bring Back Sophie 4 Real
6 years agoOlychick
6 years agocynic
6 years agoElmer J Fudd
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
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