Taxes and Tax Information

The Telephone Excise Tax Refund (TETR) is a one-time payment available on your 2006 federal income tax return. It is designed to refund previously collected long distance telephone taxes. Individuals, businesses and tax-exempt organizations are eligible to request it. Over 159 million filers are eligible to request the refund.

Individuals taxpayers have a choice, they can take the standard refund amount between $30 to $60 (based upon their exemptions on their 2006 return OR they can locate old bills and use the actual amount.

Even if you don’t have to file a return, you can still request the refund. Details can be found at the IRS web site.

If you are filing a Schedule C, E, or F you may be eligible to use a special formula that reads like this: The refund is capped at 2 percent of the total telephone expenses for businesses and tax-exempt organizations with 250 or fewer employees (this covers over 99 percent of all businesses in America). The refund is capped at 1 percent for those with more than 250 employees.

IRS provided this example of computing the Telephone Excise Tax Refund (TETR): If a business has an April 2006 telephone bill of $1,000, which includes federal telephone excise tax of $28, the tax percentage is 2.8 percent. If the September 2006 bill is $1,100 including federal telephone excise tax of $16.50, the tax percentage is 1.5 percent. The business’ long-distance excise tax percentage is 1.3 percent (2.8 percent for April minus 1.5 percent for September). The business multiplies 1.3 percent by its total phone expenses over the 41-month period to arrive at the amount of its refund. If this business had more than 250 employees, its refund would be limited to 1 percent of its total phone expenses for the period. If the business had 250 or fewer employees, the 2-percent cap would apply and would not limit the amount of the refund

This refund is the most wide-reaching in IRS history. For sure tax software companies are gearing up to include this refund in the 2006 software programs. For those choosing the standard method to compute this refund, there will be an additional line right on your 2006 tax return for the refund

Popularity: 3%

How do some people seem to always pay less tax or get a bigger tax refund than anyone else, while you try everything possible, just to break even? What if you could find a way to get 20%, 30% or even 50% more money on your tax refund, how much money would that be? Hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars.

If you could learn just one thing that would help you to get more money back at tax time, this is it. Learn how to use more Federal tax deductions and tax credits when you prepare your taxes. When you learn how to find and use the over 350 tax deductions and credits that are available to every taxpayer, you get more money back at tax refund time.

Here are just a few of the over 350 free tax deductions and credits available to you:

• Home mortgage interest, real estate taxes, property taxes
• Earned income credit, child tax credit, child care credit
• Energy tax credits
• State and local income taxes
• Charitable contributions
• Home office deduction
• Medical and dental expenses

You could spend a bundle paying a tax accountant to find every tax deduction and credit, but you no longer have to. I’ll show you how you can use tax deductions and credits to give you a triple digit increase in your income tax refund.

Just one tax credit can get you an extra $500

You’ve practiced energy conservation and purchased energy efficient windows and insulation for your house. You can transform this into an (energy tax credit) on your income tax. This is a true tax credit not just a deduction, in other words you can slice up to $500 off of your tax bill or add it to your refund. You can take the energy tax credit on:

• Home improvements: windows, high efficiency heating and cooling devices, metal roofs, heat pumps and boilers
• Efficient cars: gas and electric, diesel, alternative fuel and fuel cells
• Solar energy: solar heaters, photovoltaic systems and fuel cells

Luckily for all of us, there are now free tools on the Internet, to help find more income tax deductions and credits than ever before. This year when tax time rolls around, try searching for those overlooked tax deductions, and make your tax refund bigger than ever!

Popularity: 3%

How to estimate your Federal income tax refund or return for free

Perhaps you want to know how much your tax refund will be, or maybe how much money you might owe come tax time. If you want to find out, the fastest way to do it is by using an online Federal income tax refund - return estimator.

To estimate your taxes

The best way is to select a website that has a tax estimator and that you know has a great reputation for helping people with their tax returns. Start by creating a user account on that website. Don’t worry, it’s free. Now you can use their tax preparation software to estimate your tax. Depending on your situation, this will take 30 minutes or less.

This may take a few minutes, but I assure you, it will be worth the effort. You will know the value of this as soon you see the tax return calculator do its magic. Once you start to see the way the the tax estimator works, you will begin to come up with ways to use the income tax estimator to your advantage.

This is by far the best way I’ve found for increasing the amount of my Federal income tax refund

Next time you sit down to work on your tax return or refund, try going to an online tax filing website. You’ll find the tax estimating software to be a great tool for increasing your tax refund amount, increasing your tax deductions, and will also increase your knowledge about saving money at tax time.

Popularity: 3%