One question I hear a lot is “when should I start taking my social security payments?” In case you didn’t know, you can start taking the payments as early as age 62, but you can lose 25% or more of the monthly payment you would get if you waited to your normal retirement age to start taking benefits. There are many factors to consider – obviously it makes no sense to take benefits at 62 if you are still working since you earned income will reduce benefits by a percentage until your regular retirement age. Since you will get an even bigger check if you wait to age 70 to claim benefits, you have to weigh several options.It seems that if your family has historically lived to a ripe old age and you are in general good health and don’t the money to survive right away, it will make sense to wait until your normal retirement age at least to start collecting. I think I remember seeing that if you start collecting at 62, you would come out ahead if you lived to around 80 or less (not scientific, I just think I remember reading about the dilema and in [...]
Brian’s Tax Musings
If you have children under 17, you may qualify for the child tax credit in 2010. This is a credit of $1,000 per child that will directly reduce your taxes. If your credits completely wipe out your federal taxes, in some cases you can actually get a refund of the rest of the credit. Here is a link to an article that further discusses the credit:http://hubpages.com/hub/child-tax-creditRemember that you will need to provide your children’s social security numbers and be prepared at some future date to prove they qualify as your dependents. This credit is worth a little extra work.
Brian’s Tax Musings
Today a little break from regular tax saving and planning ideas. Did you know that President Lincoln actually signed the IRS into existance in 1862? He signed a bill creating the Commission of Internal Revenue which was assigned the job of collecting an income tax to fund the civil war. The tax was repealed 10 years later and there has been fighting about income taxes ever since. When the states ‘ratified’ the sixteenth amendment to the constitution in 1913, a federal income tax became constitutional. Because only 4 of the 42 states that ratified the amendment did so word for word (there were typos in the ratifications, mispellings, etc. – but the solicitor in charge ruled that they were minor and the intent was there, and since all other amendments to the Constitution had at least as many problems (if not more), the decision was that the amendment had been ratified) there has always been the argument that the 16th amendment is fraudulent and that you can clain such and not file with the IRS. Do so at your peril. Every challenge to the right of the govement to tax us has been struck down, and to not pay taxes knowingly [...]