Taxes

This post is by Kimberly Lankford of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.

A number of employers give workers until March 15, 2013, to use up the money in their flexible-spending account left over from 2012.

You can use the FSA money for yourself, your spouse or any dependents (including adult children up to age 26, even if they aren’t included on your health insurance policy).

This post is by Laura Saunders of The Wall Street Journal.

Last year, did you sell stocks, mutual funds or exchange-traded funds held in a taxable account?

If so, read this before you file your 2012 tax return.

This is the second year investment firms have had to report to the Internal Revenue Service the "cost basis" of certain assets sold by clients.

This post is by Lisa Greene-Lewis at U.S. News and World Report.

It’s officially tax season, and even if you’re using tax software to make preparing your taxes easier, you may still want to know what some of the common tax terms flying around mean. Here is a handy glossary:

1040: The official income tax return form printed and distributed by the IRS. There are three versions of the tax form: 1040 (if you’re self-employed and/or have itemized deductions), 1040EZ (for single and joint filers with no dependents) and 1040A (you must have taxable income of $100,000 or less and claim the standard deduction).

Adjusted Gross Income (AGI): Your gross income, minus specific adjustments to income, such as contributions made to a traditional individual retirement account or for student loan interest payments. Your AGI directly influences your eligibility to claim many available tax deductions and credits.

This post is by Steve Rosenbush of The Wall Street Journal.

It's a headache, but it has to be done.

One of the pains of being self-employed is handling your own taxes, which means regularly setting aside the money you think you'll owe to the IRS and your state. But how do you figure out how much that will be?

It's the kind of thing salaried employees take for granted. But freelance workers and other sole proprietors have to be their own payroll department.

This post is by Leah Ingram of Living on the Cheap.

The year our daughter Jane was born, my husband and I almost forgot to claim her on our taxes. She was a newborn, our accountant hadn’t seen us in a year -- so she’d never seen me pregnant -- and our tax appointments never involved chitchat, so the fact that we’d become parents wasn’t part of the conversation.

Luckily, we somehow remembered. Plus, because we’d been smart enough to apply for Jane’s Social Security number while she was still in the hospital after the birth, we were able to use it for the Child Tax Credit.

If you’re not claiming all the tax benefits you’re entitled to as a parent, you could be missing out on thousands of dollars in credits and deductions every year. Here are nine tax benefits that parents should remember to claim on their returns.

This post is by Tom Herman of The Wall Street Journal.

Some people have a good reason for not filing their tax returns yet: They can't.

But procrastinators, beware. That excuse will soon disappear.

In early March, the Internal Revenue Service will begin accepting certain types of returns, such as those claiming adoption expenses, that it hasn't been able to process. The IRS website has a list of the forms that can't be processed until the first week of March. An IRS spokesman says a specific date is "still to be announced.”

Most taxpayers could file as of Jan. 30. But others couldn't because the IRS was working on updating its forms and completing the "programming and testing of its processing systems" in the wake of tax-law changes enacted early this year. That law included many changes that affected returns for last year.

This post is by Stephen Ohlemacher of The Associated Press.

With tax season in full swing, a new poll says an overwhelming majority of adults don't believe it is ever OK to cheat on their income taxes, with most citing personal integrity as a reason to be truthful.

When asked how much, if any, is an acceptable amount to cheat on your income taxes, 87% of respondents said, "not at all." Only 11% said, "a little here and there" or "as much as possible."

Ninety-five percent said personal integrity influences them to report their taxes honestly, while 63% said fear of an audit did. Only 41% said they are honest because they believe their neighbors are, too.

This post is by Jonnelle Marte of MarketWatch.com.

While many Americans have already received tax refunds for last year, a growing number are getting some rather frustrating news -- a notice that their check has been cashed by someone else.

Despite efforts by the Internal Revenue Service to target tax cheaters -- the agency said it prevented $20 billion in would-be fraudulent refunds in 2012, up from $14 billion the year before -- tax-related identity fraud is on the rise. The IRS Identity Theft Protection Specialized Unit received nearly 450,000 cases of identity theft last year, up 78% from 2011. "This is a major problem, and it can tarnish just about every aspect of your life," says Michelle Wynn, a tax attorney with IRS Medic.