This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Coldwell Banker. All opinions are 100% mine.
We are officially in tax season. This time of year if your friend is an accountant there is a fairly good chance that they have disappeared either because they are auditing financial statements for Form 10-Ks or they are preparing various tax forms. I just finished a rough draft of my taxes for the 2009 year and let me tell you it was very disappointing. I thought Mike and I would be getting a huge refund back being that he claimed Single all year and I didn’t change to Married on the W-2 until September. Plus I received a few bonuses last year and was taxed very heavily on them. It seems that his employer didn’t take out enough taxes and my refund quickly went from four digits to a very small three digit number. I realize filing married but separately would probably get my money back but then Mike would owe so we wouldn’t really be coming out any better. I think it is time to look at our tax situation and plan better for next year.
While we are not exactly in the position to purchase a home, it is something we are seriously thinking about. My parents have offered a small loan to help us get a downpayment going so I have thought about it with the expansion of the 2010 Homebuyer Tax Credits to include both first time home buyers and current qualifying home buyers. A first time tax buyer is defined as “Someone who has not owned in the last three years” and the credit for a person falling into this description is approximately $8,000. A current qualifying home buyer is defined as “Someone who has lived in a current home consecutively for 5 of the past 8 years” and the credit for a person falling into this description is approximately $6,500. The credits are capped at $125,000 for singles, $225,000 for marrieds filing jointly, and there is a $20,000 phase-out if you exceed these caps.
Purchasing a home is a great tax planning device not only for this one time tax credit but also because the annual interest you pay on your mortgage can be deducted “below the line” on your tax form. This increases the deduction you can take against your taxable income. Congress has extended this tax credit in some form since 2008 but with the economy showing signs of recovery there is no guarantee it will be around past April of 2010. So to take this opportunity all you have to do is have a written, binding contract in place by April 30, 2010 and close by June 30, 2010.
For more information visit the Coldwell Banker site for the 2010 Tax Credit Explained where you can see all the pertinent information in tabular format as well as watch a video to learn more.
