Federal Tax Brackets 2009

By MoneyBlueBook

Update: Projected Have Been Released!

The following represents the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)'s officially released 2009 federal income tax brackets. Read 'em and weep - or perhaps rejoice, depending on where you stand on the whole federal income tax bracket sliding scale. Regardless, you're going to be getting close and personal with the marginal rates when you file your 2009 tax return in early 2010. Let's have a look at some of the tax changes shall we?

Official IRS Tax Rate Schedule Updates For Tax Year 2009

Via the Wall Street Journal, the following graphical table below gives you the official marginal tax brackets for married couples filing jointly as well as the marginal rates for single filers for 2009. The previous year's numbers are also provided to give you an idea of some of the more noticeable changes since 2008. The income numbers listed in the chart below are taxable incomes, and thus they have taken into consideration all available personal exemptions as well as any of either the standard or itemized deductions, including all pre-tax above the line 401k and deductible IRA contributions.

As key portions of the marginal tax tables are pegged to inflation, quite a few numbers must be annually revised. Thus you will note that there are quite a few key changes for the 2009 tax year compared to the year prior. However, while overall tax numbers appear to have nominally increased on the whole, taking into consideration the effects of inflation, effective tax rates may actually have remained level or

By MoneyBlueBook

Review Of Free Tax Filing Software Options - TurboTax, TaxCut, and TaxAct

Tax day is a stressful and confusing time for many people as we scramble around with our W-2's and 1040 forms, but it doesn't have to be. Currently, there is a wealth of free tax filing resources available to help people like us with timely and accurate tax preparation, courtesy of organizations like the IRS and the U.S. government. Thus, even those those who do not have the extra financial means to afford premium tax software programs like TurboTax and Taxcut still have a wide selection of competent tax assistance programs at their disposal. Depending on their individual demographics such as age or income, and depending on the availability of other special status factors such as active duty in the armed services, certain taxpayers may even qualify for free federal government sponsored tax preparation assistance and free tax filing.

Free Tax Filing With IRS Free File Offers and Non Profit Volunteer Tax Preparation Services

The various free tax preparation and free tax filing services available can be broken down into two broad categories - offers that stem from the federal government's partnership program to bring affordable partially subsidized tax filing services to lower income people, and offers that are provided by volunteer tax organizations funded by non-profit interest groups.

Taxpayers who wish to prepare and file their taxes electronically for free can take advantage of the "Free File" tax return preparation program provided by private tax vendors such as Turbo Tax, Tax Cut, and Tax Act,

By MoneyBlueBook

Review Of TurboTax and TaxCut Online Tax Preparation Software

According to some news statistics, more than half of all Americans hire a professional tax preparer to file their taxes. In this day and age, those kinds of stats frankly surprise me. I would have thought by now that the vast majority of Americans would have finally embraced the benefits of online tax preparation and the added cost saving advantages of utilizing do-it-yourself tax software products. Chalk it up to the continuous complexity of our marginal tax bracket system with all of its intricate income tax deductions and tax credit varieties or blame it on the tendency of people in general to outsource their financial responsibilities - but many people still stubbornly prefer to depend on professional tax experts to take care of their annual income tax filing obligations instead of doing it themselves.

For many people, filing income taxes is a painful, expensive, and dreaded task - but it really doesn't have to be. While I'm not suggesting the filing of one's income taxes will ever become an enjoyable experience (that will never happen), there are mitigating ways to make the process much more bearable. In the past, when April 15 tax day drew near, the only way to avoid having to flip open the bulky U.S. tax code or pour over the volumes of tax regulations and detailed tax commentaries, was to go out and pay $200-300 for an overpaid accountant or professional tax preparer to fill out the appropriate tax

By MoneyBlueBook

Tax Cuts, Social Spending, and New Jobs - But What About Stimulus Checks?

A second economic stimulus package for 2009 is on the way and from the looks of things in the news, it appears newly minted President Barack H. Obama and his Democrat controlled House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are determined to ram the lucrative spending proposals through the legislative meat grinder no matter what, much to the chagrin of skeptical and deficit-weary Congressional Republicans.

As Congress debates the wisdom and intricate details of the current version of the 2009 economic stimulus package, it's clear that something needs to be done very soon to jumpstart and save our suffering economy before we spiral into a full blown economic depression. The unemployment rate is rising fast and everywhere you turn, there seems to be a never ending stream of unemployment and layoff news being announced everyday. The stock market has already shed more than half of its value since its peak in 2007, and billions to trillions of dollars worth of wealth have already been eliminated from the economy. Major banks and financial giants like Citibank, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase, once the financial pillars of our economy and the lifeblood of our credit industry, are now clinging onto U.S. government bailout money for dear life - hoping to still be in business at the end of every quarter.

With its almost limitless resources, it's clear the federal government must intervene somehow and put this broken economy and financial system back on track to prosperity.

By MoneyBlueBook

After months of waiting and checking my mail box regularly like a little kid waiting for his video game to arrive, I was finally relieved to discover a little envelope from the United States Treasury yesterday - my long awaited 2008 Economic Stimulus Payment check had finally arrived! Cha-ching (punctuated with a few obligatory fist pumping motions).

Actually, about a week ago I had already been given written notice that the check was on its way. I received one of those pointless waste of paper junk mail letters from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) letting me know that I was entitled to an economic stimulus payment check as provided by the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, and to expect its arrival in a week or so. The letter also provided a simple breakdown of how the federal government calculated my small time stimulus payment.

But what was the point of sending this predecessor letter out to let me know this? Why is the IRS and federal government so oblivious and wasteful when it comes to wasting millions of dollars on paper and delivery costs to send out these pointless letters? Why not just combine the calculation breakdown letter with the actual stimulus rebate check that I received yesterday rather than sending them separately on different weeks? The financial savings for the federal government could easily have been several million dollars. Especially since we are now in an economic recession and the government keeps griping and raising issues about needing to balance the budget, and even

By MoneyBlueBook

Back when I was in college, I knew absolutely nothing about filing my taxes. Yes, I was a college finance major at the time, but I don't recall learning anything practical about taxes, deductions, or income withholding in any of my classes - at least not anything involving the actual process of filing one's tax return. At the time I had a part time job working at a school computer lab making some extra money. Every week I received a pay check but I never paid it much attention. I barely knew what the numbers meant - wages and FICA, they were all the same to me - all I knew was that the government was taking a large chunk of my meager pay check every week, leaving me with only peanuts. Since I made so little at the time, only a few thousand dollars for two semesters of work, when it came time to file my taxes, I decided to try doing it myself. My parents weren't much help since they were living overseas and had expressed their wish for me to become more financially independent and self reliant.

Sometimes You Make Mistakes in Life - And Taxes Are More Prone To Errors Than Anything Else

Despite knowing next to nothing about taxes, I still somehow managed to file my income tax by following the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) instructions, albeit in bumbling fashion. This was before I started using free tax preparation solutions or utilizing electronic do-it-yourself tax preparation programs like