NEW YORK, April 10 (Reuters) – It’s one of the worst tax
time scenarios: You discover while doing your taxes – or you
just know without even doing them -that you owe taxes, and you
don’t have the cash. What should you do?

You may be tempted to ignore the problem. Don’t do it. The
worst thing you can do is put off filing your return because
you’re afraid of the bill. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
penalties for not filing are more punitive than the ones for not
paying.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – About 11 million homeowners owe more than their homes are worth, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic, and while taxes may not be the first thing they think about in deciding what to do, all the various options have tax consequences.

Until the end of this year, at least, there is a tax break for homeowners who negotiate debt reduction with their lenders.

NEW YORK, April 2 (Reuters) – About 11 million U.S.
homeowners owe more than their homes are worth, according to
real estate data firm CoreLogic, and while taxes may not be the
first thing they think about in deciding what to do, all the
various options have tax consequences.

Until the end of this year, at least, there is a tax break
for homeowners who negotiate debt reduction with their lenders.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – To Roth or not to Roth? As it turns out, you can sort of have it both ways.

You can convert a traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA) — with taxes deferred on the deposits and income tax paid on the withdrawals in retirement — to a Roth, where instead taxes are paid up-front and no income taxes will be due again. And if it doesn’t work out for you in terms of the tax burden or losses in the account, you can change your mind, because of some generous do-over clauses.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s too bad colleges don’t offer a class in “advanced tax strategies” to all freshmen, along with those study skills, health and diversity sessions. That extra expertise would come in handy for anyone trying to sort through the profusion of education credits and deductions that can help offset college costs.

With the annual cost of board and tuition topping $50,000 at some private colleges, and expenses dramatically rising at public universities, it’s worth learning how to maximize those breaks. Here’s a brief guide:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The recent string of tornadoes that tore through 10 states, killing dozens of people and flattening neighborhoods, capped a string of natural disasters that seems almost biblical in proportion.

In 2011, there were floods, twisters, droughts, wildfires and mudslides — a record number of federally declared disasters, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Last year FEMA issued 99 major disaster declarations, compared to the annual average of just 37 for the past 50 years — and another 29 emergency declarations.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Looking for a job can be frustrating, especially now, with the unemployment rate seemingly stuck above 8 percent. There is a silver lining at tax time, though: Those job hunting costs may cut your tax bill.

Of course, where taxes are concerned, it’s never quite that simple. There are a lot of hoops to jump through before you can write off those job-hunting expenses.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As medical costs go up and household income lags behind, more people are likely to qualify for healthcare tax deductions.

A recent Census report(here)

shows a decline in median household income; real median household income was $49,445 in 2010, 7.1 percent below its 1999 peak of $53,252.)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s a move of desperation: Raiding your retirement plan to get at the cash because life has thrown you a curve ball.

But desperate economic times may call for desperate measures; sometimes you just have to get cash from somewhere. And if that’s the case, there are some ways to get at that retirement money before age 59 ½, without paying the hefty 10 percent penalty which generally applies for touching those funds early.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Putting aside a little extra money toward retirement in an individual retirement account, or IRA, would seem to be a no-brainer for the vast majority of middle-class Americans. Yet relatively few people contribute to them each year.

Although most households were eligible to make contributions to IRAs, only 14 percent of them did so in 2010, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. Just 39 percent of households own an IRA, even when you count all the IRAs created by rollovers of 401(k) assets and SEP-IRAs for the self-employed.