Consistent maintaining your state of legal residence can be a little extra work, but it’s important to do it. Legal offices and financial counselors have been saying it for years. You have to demonstrate, through your actions, that you are intending to maintain your legal residence in the state you’re calling home for tax purposes…. | Read More…
Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act Text As It Applies To Spouses and Taxes
Over the years, there have been a number of federal laws trying to make life easier when it comes to military spouses and taxes. These laws have all been amendments to the Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act. The Military Spouses Residency Relief Act Passed in 2009 and amended in 2017, the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act… | Read More…
Social Security Tax Repayment: What To Do With A Corrected W-2
Most military service members are finishing up the Social Security tax repayment from the deferral that happened in the last part of 2020. This will be a change in your paycheck and you may get a corrected 2020 W-2. What Were The Deferral and Repayment? From September through December of 2020, Social Security taxes were… | Read More…
Tax Returns: When One State Isn’t Enough
My friend Jerry Zeigler is always helping me out with tax questions, and he’s graciously shared this information about how and when military service members and their spouses may need to file tax returns in multiple states. We definitely did this wrong for a few years, and it cost us money in the long run…… | Read More…
Income Taxes After Military Retirement: Don’t Get Stuck With A Huge Bill
There’s a rumor floating around that somehow your taxes are going to zoom up after you retire from the military. As with many rumors, there is a bit of truth in it, but there’s also just a lot of confusion. It is true that some military families end up with large tax bills in their… | Read More…
How Income Taxes Work – Even If You’re Not A Tax Person
There’s lots of misunderstanding about how income taxes work. There are literally thousands of pages of laws, and hundreds of different tax forms. However, the basic system isn’t really that complicated. Understanding the basics of how income taxes work is a key step in making sure that you get your taxes right. It also helps… | Read More…
From The Mailbag: A CPA Who Doesn’t Get SCRA
There seem to be few things as confusing as state of legal residency as it applies to military service members and their spouses. Even the professionals are often under-informed or confused. As we see in this email I received: Hi, I am a CPA in CA. I have a client in the Marines. His “home… | Read More…
Favorable Tax Rules for Military When Excluding Capital Gain from Sale of Principal Residence
I asked my smart friend Paul Allen if he could possibly explain the capital gains exclusion in another way, especially the part about partial exclusions. I’ve always been confused by them. Even though I’ve written about this here, I was still baffled about that part. And Paul came back in a big way. I am… | Read More…