Barry Bulakites Blogs

As a citizen, you must ensure that you pay your due taxes.   At the same time, you must, of course, ensure that you pay only what you are legally obligated to pay.   What often complicates things is that you find yourself too busy to notice and declare various deductions you are actually entitled to.   Among the most common deductions, most Americans miss filing are student loan interests, expenses incurred from moving and searching for jobs, refinancing costs, contributions to various charities, IRD estate and state sales taxes, and prior state tax liabilities. There are fine-print rules that some don’t bother or fail to read and study, causing undue stress as they labor to obtain rightful tax deductions.   You can still insist on the do-it-yourself route or rely on various tax software now available, but the best and most hassle-free solution is still to hire a certified tax professional or CPA.   With the aid of CPAs, you’d be able to eff...

More conservative investors will normally use certificates of deposit or CDs. This should not come as a surprise to seasoned investors and finance experts since CDs are well-known for being safer than other investment options. CDs are also not connected to the stock market, which means the risk is incredibly low. However, critics of CDs argue that the investment causes investors to lose money because of inflation and taxation. The harsh truth is that over the past seven years, the average six-month CD rate has never exceeded 1 percent. Also for the past seven years, CDs have never yielded a positive “real” return. Image source: blogspot.com As with all investments, doing a bit of research goes a long way. With a bit of calculation, investors can see just how much they stand to lose (in terms of purchasing power) when they invest in CDs, especially when they consider the effect of inflation and taxes. A lot of banks never discuss these hard facts with investo...

Tax planning is widely known to be the manner of forecasting one’s tax liability and creating ways and methods to reduce it. This involves analyzing one’s financial situation from a tax perspective, with the goal of tax efficiency. Here are some steps for businesses to perform this crucial exercise in financial planning.  Image source: Pinterest.com        Start early : The tendency for most people is to do taxes in March or April when the deadline for settling tax returns is already looming near. Start earlier to have more time to estimate one’s investment gains and losses, as well as income.  C alculate tax liability : Know these liabilities and work toward them. This need not be a difficult thing to do if one has a relatively fixed income and salaried employees. Engage the services of a tax expert if you find yourself in the dark when it comes to computations.  Profile risk level : Here, find a good level of investment ris...