Sunday 27 March 2016

How to Identify Your Tax Filing Status

Without knowing the right tax filing status, you could end up paying more tax than you should or worse, you could end up filing for a wrong one. Selecting the right tax filing status can have a great impact on the tax benefits that you receive; the amount of taxes that you pay or the amount of your standard deduction.

Currently, there are five filing statuses for you to choose from. Most people can claim a filing status erroneously but in good faith. The filing status that is mostly filed in error is the “Head of Household” status.

In choosing the right filing status, firms such as AP Tax Group advice that you consider the following:
  • Marital status. In considering the marital status, one must realize that the status of the person on the last day+ of the year represents his or her status for the entire year.
  • Choices/options. At certain times, a person can fit into more than one filing status. In this case, one is free to choose the status that can give an individual the most benefit. It could be a filing status that affords a person of more tax benefits or a filing status that has the lowest taxes.
  • Single Filing Status. If you have not been legally married, separated or divorced, then you can claim the Single Filing Status. Some have erroneous beliefs that being legally separated or divorced can afford them the single filing status.
  • Married Filing Jointly. To some extent, this Married Filing Jointly status has some advantages over Married Filing Separately. Often, however, the differences in the taxes are so small that you might not even consider this. However, for couples who have separate tax brackets and would want to afford the same tax benefit when the other can and the other cannot, this status becomes beneficial.
  • Married Filing Separately. Almost always, married filing jointly is the status that would benefit couples. In special circumstances, however, the status Married Filing Separately becomes more practical. We can consider the case of tax debt. When a partner has a tax debt, filing under the status Married Filing Separately makes the other partner liable for the same debt. This status, however, has some disadvantages over advantages on some couples. For couples filing separately, the deduction or tax exemption can only be applied once. If this takes effect, only one in the couple can list the child as a beneficiary to apply for a tax exemption.
  • Head of Household. This status is considered to be the most filed in error. That is because most people think that this status applies to the breadwinner of the family. What most miss out is that the Head of Household status only applies to individuals that contribute equal to or more than half of the household expenses. Thus, this status can be filed as an alternative to the Single Filing Status if applicable.
  • Widower with Dependent Child. This status applies to those whose spouse died during the preceding year of filing and those who have a depended child.
There are a number of firms that are willing to help you choose the right filing status and guide you in your taxation decisions. Among those is the AP Tax Group, which is among the most reputable firms there is.

Tax is a crucial part of an economically strong state or country. Though they may seem a burden to people in general, choosing the best filing status allows you to make the taxes work for you rather than against you.

Monday 21 March 2016

Tips to Selling Your Home Sweat-Free With Some Cross Border Tax Services

The idea of selling your house alone can give you hassles with the paper works and conditions, especially if you will sell a house where you are considered an ‘alien resident’. If you are a Canadian citizen and will be selling your property situated in the US, you might need some assistance with an accountant for some cross border tax services to help you get through with all the dealings you will encounter upon selling your house.

If your property is in the US, then this means that you are entitled to a non-resident withholding tax of 10% of the gross sales price. So you might want to consider asking a good accountant for the best options in selling your house.

First off, you will need strategies on how you can be able to sell with a time period you have decided. You may want to consider your marketing strategy to attract a lot of potential buyers that will be interested in your home. A lot of home sellers will allot their selling period in 3 months or less. Others tend to sell their house in a shorter period due to relocation or job opportunity reasons. However, the reason it will be super beneficial for you to come up with selling strategies beforehand to keep your bids going.

One of the good things in getting an accountant is that they can handle your cross border tax services. Meaning they can help you handle your papers to file a US tax return. Also consider that even if you can have a helping hand from your accountant, you must still consider your property of how much the purchase price really is and consider asking what they will plan after purchasing the house. If it will be under $300,000 and your buyer will use the property as a personal residence, then your withholding requirement will be eliminated.

Going to your marketing strategies; what you will need to produce are flyers. It must have a photo of your front home and adequate information that can attract buyers. You might think that flyers are inefficient tools of marketing because it is highly overlooked, but it actually comes in handy. It’s important to include in the flyer the details of your house such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, how big the house is in square feet, garage information and other things that you can consider to appeal buyers. You can pass their flyers out during an open house and to your neighborhood so prospect buyers can have something to refer to and if your neighbors can refer friends or family that might be interested.

Another thing to think about is your online marketing strategy. You have to make sure that you will be able to post the photos of your house inside and outside to be able to let your online viewers have a virtual tour of your home. Having a video as documentation is a plus to your online marketing strategy. Upload these on your social media accounts or post them as one of your blog posts, if you have one and inform them that your house is for sale. It is important that you won’t put personal information such as your complete address or contact information. Just posting your email as the contact information is enough to be able to have a conversation with your potential buyers. A lot of people purchase almost everything and anything these days on the internet so it will be of great benefit for you if you will post an ad on the internet.

You also have to contact a realtor to put up your home on the Multiple Service Listing (MLS). MLS is an online database for homes that are on sale. Hiring an agent can bring you fully interested buyers and can be capable to buy your home. Your buyers can come anywhere but a buyer suggested by an agent is more unfailing.

Finally, make sure not to skip processing your papers for taxes. US and Canadian taxes may be unique, but problematic, so phone up an accountant that can give you cross border tax services such as tips and advises on what you need to know and what papers you need to process when you find a buyer that will purchase your house in the US.

Monday 7 March 2016

Procure A Land With Your Canada US Tax Accountant

Buying a piece of land may cause you to think that it will be a very easy and straightforward thing to do since you don’t have to ponder on the facilities or quality of the house. But really, it’s best to learn a thing or two in purchasing your land and make sure that you can build your house safely. Most especially, you have to at least have some proper consultation with your Canada US Tax Accountant for the possible aftermath taxes with the location of your desired land.

Being a US Citizen wanting a place or planning to settle in Canada requires quite a lot to know about mortgages, government programs and the like. So consulting your Canada US Tax Accountant will definitely come in handy for your future transactions. The first thing to learn about your land is the kind of soil on the tract. You can ask your realtor about that, but it is important that you can find out for yourself if the land is in a flood zone since there are sellers that do not have adequate data for those. You should know the status of the land before buying it.

Moreover, it’s important to ask if the tract can be safe enough to build your house. Your contractor can answer you in a more concise way, if you have the data to back you up.

Also consider inspecting the pH of your land if it is in good condition or not if you are planning to have your own garden or vegetable patch. Most of the time this is overlooked but really, it’s as important as consulting your accountant if you plan to put up your garden or maybe still having second thoughts about it.

It is also important to take note on the sectors of the land where many realtors don’t have accurate information. Your Canada US Tax Accountant for the details to verify the land if its location is a zone for business, or for residential use only with the zoning map. The land’s location can determine your deal differences when you purchase or sell the land afterwards. Lands that fall under the business zones are usually of more value than the residential land.

Make an observation of the land to determine if you need some adjustments with the trees or not. It will be nice if you have the basic draft of your house to resolve easier. It will be to your advantage if you will not need any adjustments with the plants, but it takes a lot of time and money to actually do some alterations since you need to consider the roots you will be taking care of.

You can also think about whether you will need a yard or not. You might want to consider your future plans for the land if the size is good enough for you.

It’s an advantage knowing all these things to make sure that you won’t be having regrets in the future. It’s fine to take time looking for the land for you before buying to avoid bad aftermaths. After all, your goal is to build a home that will be perfect for your lifestyle.

Wednesday 2 March 2016

How We Found Our New Home with Our Cross Border Tax Specialist

Getting a good-paying job is one of the best things that can happen to us while we were in Canada. And by that, it means we can save up enough to buy a new house. Having been renting for quite a while in the US, dealing with taxes while we now work in Canada will be too much pain on our part. So we decided to have our Cross Border Tax Specialist to help us with our dilemma and be able to live in together with our children.

The first thing that we have to think about is where we would like to live. We have to secure that we can live in a place where our children can grow up without breaking too much off on our banks. Finding our preferred location took much of our time, actually because we wanted to spare our children with the drama of moving a lot -- at least based on our experience as a child.  That’s where we decided to have a place in Canada.

After decades of deciding for the place, we decided to get a realtor even if it’s unnecessary. But because we really wanted to see all options, we agreed to have one. Our realtor ended up doing so much of the process, including the things we don’t have much knowledge on.

We also decided to seek advice from a Cross Border Tax Specialist since we are US citizens, currently working in the US but wants to live and have a place in Canada. We all know the hassle of processing, filing and managing taxes to and from US and Canada so we thought it was best to have a Cross Border Specialist as our partner in crime. Our specialist gave us a heads up on the issues we need to take notes on regarding the nature of the neighborhood or place that we will be purchasing so that in the long run, we can save ourselves from overdues and hassles of paper requirements and taxes.

The first suggestion we got from our realtor was to talk to our bank for getting mortgage before anything else. My husband suggested getting a loan from anyone, to which the bank approved to give us higher rate than anyone else.

We then started to canvass houses after taking a good look on our budget. The struggle we had is the hassle of finding a house we can both agree upon. Don’t get me wrong. My husband and I get along well, but it seems we have different preferences on houses. Not only that. Since the both of us work, canvassing a lot of houses all at the same time during the weekends gave us the confusion to remember the houses and its features.

It was not long ‘til we found a little blue house near the bay. It was smaller than our ideal size of our house but we loved how close it was to the water. It had the perfect big yard where we can extend the house if we wanted to, or when we decide to put a pool. It seemed to promise us a lot of things we wanted. My husband saw all its potentials that he said all the possibilities to convince me to agree with the house. When I decided to agree, he actually jumped up and down! 

At present, I know that living here is a right choice. Right now, the size is perfect. In the future we can have the option to expand for the coming of our future children. We love our new house.

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