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It is such a daunting task to find a job and to protect your income and to retain your current job is yet another uphill struggle. You need to constantly prove your self and be consistent in your performance if not you are bound to lose your employment. Just meeting the targets is not sufficient these days, managers expect you to slog more to achieve higher than the targets set. The trend today is that you work more for less pay!

In this situation it is best to consider some insurance cover that helps you protect your monthly earnings. It should not be any protective cover you bump into but a comprehensive cover which allows you to gain financial freedom even in an economic crisis situation, redundancy, disability or sickness.

Income protection plan – your true friend on whom you can bank on!

Sickness
Redundancy
Disability
Accident
Bed ridden etc.

When you are in any of the above situation and are ripped off your monthly earnings, your income protection insurance will compensate for your monthly earnings. It may be from 50 to 75% of your salary that you are paid back by your insurance company. No company will pay you salary beyond your paid leave balance. Once your paid leave ceases to exist, no organisation will pay for any of your bills be it credit card, loans or other expenses. Even when you have some balance paid leave, you will only be paid your usual salary and you need to make your various payments such as credit card, mobile bills, loans etc. Some company may have an option for mobile bill reimbursement if you are of a business, sales or marketing profile.

Beyond this no company will help you. How long could you survive? Could you live on your savings? It seems impossible isn’t it? Why don’t you try and safe guard your salary in such a crisis situation by getting protected under an insurance cover.

So what’s so great about getting multiple insurance quotes? Because it’s one of the greatest ways to save money on your insurance policies. By getting various different quotes from multiple insurance companies you expose yourself to much more possible savings than by not doing it.

The main principle behind getting more than one insurance quote is that insurance quotes are insurers way of competing for business. Just as if you were to have a construction project done you would not just call a company & ask them to build you a pool. You would notify multiple construction businesses telling them that you want to have a pool put in and that you would like to have them submit a bid.

Insurers work the same way as those construction companies. Their quotes are their bid for your business. That’s why it’s so important to ensure that you are getting multiple insurance quotes when you are trying to save money on your insurance premiums. It is how you maximize your chances at saving money.

But another good thing to know while shopping for insurance is that getting multiple quotes isn’t the only way to save money. Insurance discounts also play a big role. You could very possibly save more money by using discounts than what your insurance quotes tell you you’ll save. So it’s very important to ensure that you are doing more than just getting multiple quotes if you’re looking to save money. Spend some time doing a little bit of research and find out how to totally maximize your savings. That is what really goes into saving the absolute most on your insurance premiums.

What is Insurance?

Insurance is a contract between two parties whereby one party called insurer undertakes in exchange for a fixed sum called premiums, to pay the other party happening of a certain event.

Insurance is a protection against a financial loss arising on the happening of an unexpected event. Insurance Companies collect premium to provide for this protection. A loss is paid out of this premium collected from the insuring public. The insurance Company act as a trustee to the amount collected through premium.

Insurance is generally classified in three main categories:

(i) Life
(ii) Health
(iii) General
(iv) Car & Much more.

To get insurance an individual or an organisation can approach to an insurance Company directly, through Insurance Agent of the concerned company or through Intermediaries.

Benefits of Insurance

1. Safeguards oneself and one’s family for future requirements

2. Peace of mind-in case of financial loss.

3. Encourage saving.

4. Tax rebate.

5. Protection from the claim made by creditors.

6. Security against a personal loan, housing loan or other types of loan.

7. Provide a protection cover to industries, agriculture, women and child.

Reasons for buying insurance

Insurance Buys Time and Money
People like to refer to insurance as time insurance, the reason being that insurance proceeds are paid to the insured’s beneficiaries in case of death or on the maturity of the policy. The money proffered by it helps buy time to adjust to the change of circumstances. Insurance provides large amounts of cash that will keep the lifestyle for the survivors the way it was before the insured’s death.

Insurance Offers Peace of Mind
For the person who buys an insurance policy, it offers absolute and complete peace of mind. He or she knows that the decision made by him will provide sound benefits in the future, whether or not the individual may live to see it. The life insurance policy will subsequently prove this in the future if and when funds are needed. This is the guarantee of the insurance contract.

Multiple Applications
The future is uncertain for each and every one. No one knows how long he or she will live. The investment benefit is paid to the insured’s beneficiaries after his death or it can be used during the life as well. Life insurance policy owners can turn to the cash value of the policy in case of a financial emergency when all avenues are either blocked or denied. They know that they can avail of loans based on their insurance policies.

The policy owners can use the cash value of their policies to meet their long-term financial needs as well. They may have purposefully invested in insurance to use the cash in the policy for their children’s future marriage expenses or higher education fees.

Enduring Elasticity
Since life insurance is flexible enough to serve several needs, the insured can keep several long-term goals in mind once he or she invests in the insurance plan. The cash value of the policy can be allocated towards augmenting the monthly income during the retirement years. Leisure years should be turned into pleasure years. Permanent life insurance is designed on the concepts of long-term flexibility.

Financial Security
The insurance policy offers contractual guarantees to people looking for peace of mind when they buy life insurance. Life insurance offers complete financial security. The purchase of life insurance demonstrates concern for a family’s future financial well being.

Regard for Family
The purchase of life insurance clearly displays care and concern for the people the policy owner loves.

Insurance is Safer
No financial institution can do what life insurance does. No industry can back its products with reserves and surplus as sound as those of the insurance industry.

The proof of strength and safety that insurance companies have ensured even under the most adverse of conditions is a matter of pride for the entire insurance industry. For generation after generation, life insurance has been acclaimed as the very benchmark of security against which the other industries are measured.

Every year, normal due date for filling income tax return is April 15. However, if you don’t have all the necessary information to file your income tax return and you need additional time to prepare it, you may ask the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for an extension of six months until October 15.

(a) The first step is to obtain an IRS Form 4868 that will automatically extend the deadline to file your income tax return. You may download the form directly from the IRS website (IRS.gov).

(b) The Form 4868 is completed as a worksheet where you fill in your personal information, estimated tax liability, any tax payment you made throughout the year and the income tax balance due. The good part is you don’t have to explain why you’re asking for an extension.

(c) The Form 4868 needs to be submitted before April 15 to be eligible for extension. Therefore, make sure you submit it electronically through the tax preparation software you use or the any free E-Filer service. If you don’t have a free E-Filer service, you may visit the IRS website and search for a “free file”.

(d) One thing you should be very careful with is that filing a tax return extension electronically does not grant you additional time to pay your taxes. You have to pay your taxes by due deadline on April 15. Therefore, calculate your income tax balance due and make full payment of this amount along with the tax return extension to avoid interest and penalties. Some people make partial payment of their income tax balance, but this only reduces the penalty on their outstanding balance. In particular, if you don’t file by April 15, the penalty ranges from 5% to 25% of the balance due. And if you fail to pay in full, the penalty is 0.5% per month plus interest rate charges. So, by all means, it is to your best interest to file an extension and pay your income tax balance in full.

(e) Payments can be made through credit card, electronic fund transfer or check. Link2Gov and Official Payments are two IRS-approved credit card services that charge 2.49% convenience fees for offering extension payments. Moreover, you can specify a checking account through the IRS E-File page for electronic fund transfer. You can also make your payment over the phone.

(f) The last step is to submit the Form 4868 electronically. However, before you do that make sure that your case doesn’t fall under the special rules. For example, if you live outside the US, if you are out of the US when the 6-month extension expires or if you serve in a combat zone or a qualified hazardous duty area, you need to contact IRS for specifications.

Filling taxes online is becoming increasingly popular in today’s society mostly because it saves a lot of time and it is much less stressful than trying to get an accountant by the date deadline and file your taxes on due date. Moreover, besides being simple and safe, it is also for free or for a significantly lower fee than using a tax preparer or an accountant.

The first thing you should know if you have decided to file your taxes online is that you don’t need to buy online tax filling software. Basically, what you do when filling your taxes online is to transfer your tax information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) similarly like you would have done if you had reported your income on paper. Yet, the slight difference between the two methods is that when filling online requires electronic transfer of your data to the IRS via the Internet and this requires the appropriate software. However, most online websites do not charge for the use of their databases.

How to file you taxes online?

You can file your taxes online either by input the figures directly to the software or by doing your calculations on paper and then plug in the numbers on the software. Here are the necessary steps for the online method:

a) Make sure you have gathered all the necessary paperwork so that you are ready to plug in any number is required during the filling process. Normally, the software allows saving your progress and return later on to continue, after you have collected additional information. As already said, filling taxes online is stress-free. However, excessive delay may result in having to start over again if you don’t save your progress and the time is out.

b) If you feel insecure with electronic filling and digital transferring of your data to the IRS, perhaps you should consider filling out a paper tax return first and then filling out the electronic form. This would be particularly helpful for the parts where you have to enumerate deductions and make sure what to file where.

c) After you have entered all the necessary information into the software and you have double-checked, sign the electronic tax return.

d) Submit the tax return to the IRS using the E-Filer. The software adds us all the numbers basically double checking that they make sense and it transfers your tax return to the IRS.

What software to use?

Two of the best services currently available in the market for filling your taxes online are TurboTax and H&R Block.

For many people, TurboTax is the #1 rated tax software. TurboTax offers the Free Edition for simple tax returns, but also Deluxe (for own property, donations or medical expenses), Premier (for investments & rental property), Home & Business (for sole proprietorships, consultants, contractors or single-owner LLCs) and Business (for Corporations, Partnerships and LLCs). TurboTax allows users to enter useful information at their own pace and modify the tax return form before submitting it to the IRS.

H&R Block is also a well-respected service that doesn’t require you to buy online software because the tax return can be filed through their online application. The software cross-checks the numbers you input and then submits the form to the IRS. With H&R Block, many people have seen their federal return to be automatically transferred to the state return for them.

What are the benefits?

Filling your taxes online is overall beneficial, but you need to familiarize yourself with the process. By reviewing and understanding the procedure through the IRS website, you will save yourself from both the frustration and the time to collect all necessary information and complete the electronic filling process correctly. Once you do that, you achieve accuracy in your calculations, faster return in your taxes and good reputation for using reliable online software.

Besides, filing your taxes online gives you a secure feeling. You know that you can correct any mistake you possibly make in the process before submitting your tax return to the IRS.

With tax season right around the corner it can be easy to get a little flustered by all the tax rules, new changes, credits and deductions. Things are even more confusing if you’re a small business owner. Read below to learn top small business tax deductions you should be taking on your 2009 tax return.

Start-Up Costs
You can deduct the expenses of running your business on your taxes, but nothing can be deducted before your business opens its doors. You can deduct up to $5,000 in start-up and $5,000 in organizational costs for the first year of business. Expenses that are not deducted can be amortized over a 180 month period, which begins the moment you open your business. These expenses include market research, advertising, employee training, business travel and other costs.

Auto Expenses
A lot of business owners will merely take the standard mileage rate deduction, 55 cents per mile for 2009, because it’s easier to keep track of your mileage records, but you could actually get a larger deduction if you keep track of everything, including repairs, maintenance, mileage, parking fees and insurance. You can only deduct the business portion of your auto expenses if your car is used for both business and pleasure, so keep track of the mileage accurately.

Education
You can deduct educational expenses on your taxes only if they are related to your current business or occupation. The expense can be deducted if you are furthering your education to maintain or improve skills required for your job-not to get a new job.

Equipment and Furniture
Some businesses can deduct the full cost of their equipment the year they purchased them rather than capitalizing them-meaning to deduct their cost over a number of years. You can deduct up to $250,000 of the cost of new equipment on your 2009 tax return, but some assets don’t qualify, such as real estate or property bought from a relative.

Advertising and Promotion
The cost of marketing, including business cards, Yellow Page ads, commercials, etc. is deductible on your 2009 tax return. Promotional costs that create business goodwill, such as sponsoring a little league baseball team, are also deductible as long as there is a definite connection between the sponsorship and your business.

Interest
If you used credit to finance business purchases, the interest on that credit is fully deductible. This also goes for the interest taken on a personal loan. You just need to make sure you conform to the IRS’ rules if you borrowed money from a relative or a friend. Also, you must prove that the money borrowed was only used for business.

Travel
With business travelling, you can deduct the cost of your airfare, costs of operating your car, taxis, lodging, meals and more. You must have records for all of these expenses. If you’re combining business and pleasure, you can only deduct these expenses if business was the main purpose of your trip. However, you can’t deduct the expenses of taking your spouse or your family on your trip.

Entertaining Expenses
The IRS will approve the deduction of up to 50% of entertainment expenses for your business, but you must follow these rules: it must be directly related to the business and business must be discussed (such as a meal catered to the office), or it must be associated with the business and the entertainment occurs directly before or after a business discussion. Make sure when you’re keeping records to make note of the business purpose of these entertainment outings.

Professional Fees
Professional and legal fees are deductible, but if the costs are part of your start-up expenses, you may need to amortize the cost over 60 months.

Charitable Contributions
If your business is a partnership or a limited liability company, your business can make a charitable contribution and pass the deduction onto you to claim on your individual tax return. If you own a corporation, the corporation can deduct charitable contributions on the company’s taxes.

Donating car to a charity organization is always a good thing to do. With that, you are helping for those in need, and you are motivated more with donation of your car to a charity because you will get substantial tax return from IRS. But don’t get to exited about that, because tax break that you going to get may not be that big. In the past, many people abused this way of tax deduction, so IRS changed the rules.

If your car donation is worth less then $500.00, in order to get tax return, you will just need a document from charitable organization about your car donation and value of the car.

But, if your car is valued more than $500.00, than new rules will be applied. You can find these new rules in IRS’s “Revenue Provisions” in Section 884 of Title VIII. This new rules says that if your car is worth more than $500.00 your tax deduction is limited to a price from a sale of your donated car. In other words, that is the actual selling price, and not the suggested retail price of your donated car. That is in the case that charity organization wants to sell a car. But in the case that charity plans not to sell your car, but to use it in other charity work, like for transportation of people in need, then you can claim the full market value.

The charity is obligated by the law to provide you with written acknowledgment of the contribution within the 30 days, and you must attach this statement for your tax return. You cannot get tax deduction without this statement from charity organization.

But still, even with these new rules, car donation for tax deduction is very popular way for getting rid of your old car, helping to somebody in need, and having some financial benefits for yourself.

As soon as March rolls around, many of us get ready to welcome the Spring season but many worry about the Tax season. I am sure you are among millions of people trying to get your tax return filled and filed away by Apr 15. Many of you might use your good Internet skills and take advantage of on-line tools like Turbo Tax or TaxAct to file taxes. Others still don’t believe the on-line tools does good job in getting you big tax refund and still depend on CPA’s and tax preparers for tax help.

Either way, you will only get what you can get and you cannot change anything now at this point to get more tax refunds than eligible. Some don’t understand, it is too late to think about getting more tax deductions unless you planned in advance. You can only reduce taxes so much by either by taking deductions or using credits. That’s where Tax planning comes into play a key role.

Tax planning is many times confused with tax preparation, with only thought given to planning when preparing their annual tax return. However, little can be done to actually reduce your tax bill at that point. If your aim is to reduce taxes, you need to be aware of tax planning opportunities throughout the year.

Take time in the early part of year, may be during tax preparation process, to assess your tax situation, and look for ways to lower your tax bill. Consider a list of items, such as what kinds of debt you owe, which investments you own and need to dispose, how you are saving for retirement and kids education expenses and what tax-deductible expenses you incur. Also deciding whether you want to file separately or jointly, timing the sale of your capital assets, deciding on period of withdrawal of retirement funds, the timing and amounts of giving gifts and when to pay expenses are some examples of tax planning.

By thinking about tax consequences during the year on every big financial moves will prevent you from finding out later that there was a better way to handle every transaction.

Here are few examples of tax planning which might help you either to get better refunds or avoid shelling out on taxes during the filing time.

1. If you are an employee, you can avoid paying at the end of the year by increasing your tax withholding. It actually changes the mind set from “how much need to pay” to “how much I will get back as refund”. But the problem is, more money will be taken out of your paycheck throughout the year and you need adjust your budget accordingly. That may sound like a good strategy but at the same time you don’t want to give away Uncle Sam interest free money by withholding too much. A nice realm check is to use this year’s return and keep the all deductions constant and see whether you withholding is right level. If you got too much refund reduce the withholding proportionately, on the other hand if you paid tax, increase your withholding accordingly.

2. If you have a stock which you been waiting for years to bounce back up but never seen any signs, don’t lose heart. That loser stock can still bring you money by reducing your tax burden. Just wait till the end of year and sell it if you don’t see the sunlight for the stock. Buy selling the loser stock for loss, it helps to balance out the capital gains for that year, plus allows to take another $3,000 deduction (married filed jointly) in regular income. But there is a caveat to it. You need to avoid wash sale. You cannot just sell the loser stock and buy the same stock with before or after 30 days of the sale. Then the losses you realized previously gets disallowed.

3. If you are expecting big medical expenses for that calendar year, you should be able to itemize the deduction by keeping track of the transactions and even medical miles driven. In order to do that, you need to plan and remember to save all the receipts of the expenses like hospital charges, co pays, medicines&prescription cost and much more. Track the medical miles driven and also add them in the deduction. Add these medical deductions on top of the health insurance paid from your pocket.

These are just few samples and there are lot more too tax planning. Will cover some more in the other article.

Companies in California that are located in a California may have the pleasant revelation that their employees can help them qualify for up to $13,000 per employee annually in California tax credit. Learn how your business may qualify for these enterprise zone credits by discussing this topic with a knowledgeable California certified public accountant. An accountant with a thorough understanding of these enterprise zone credits can help you with your corporate tax planning so that you can save money and help your local community at the same time.

An tax credit may be earned for each company that is located in one of forty-two state. These zones have been hit hard by the economic downturn facing our country, and there are many people living in the zones that need work, yet face challenges finding jobs. It was for the purpose of increasing the hiring of residents of a California that the California tax credit was established, and these, along with the federally sponsored enterprise zone tax credit, helps businesses to locate in these areas and boost the local economy, helping people to get off of unemployment rolls and state benefits while simultaneously improving your business.

You will need to determine if your company falls within the boundaries of a California enterprise zone, and your CPA can help you with this. Next, you will want to understand the hiring rules that are involved with earning a California enterprise zone tax credit. It is based on whom you hire, and your employees will need to be in certain qualifying groups of people in order for your business to earn an enterprise zone tax credit. Employees who live in the California enterprise and who are qualified disabled veterans of military service, workers who have been recently laid off, summer youth hires and young people in the zones, those receiving public assistance and others who qualify at the time they are hired make your corporation eligible for these tax credits. Credits may be retroactively applied for up to three years prior to the current year when the qualifications are met, and credits may also be carried forward to next year if you do not need to use them this year.

A Long Beach CPA with a complete understanding of the california enterprise zone credits that are available for businesses will be needed in order to make sure you do not miss any tax benefits that come from your location in a California. He or she can also help you learn if you qualify for federal hiring credits as well as state ones.

Few California businesses realize that they can take advantage of work opportunity tax credits provided to them at the state and Federal levels, but those that do realize tremendous tax advantages. If you are unsure whether or not your company might qualify for these hiring tax credit options, be sure to contact a certified public accountant with experience with work opportunity tax, also called WOTC California, who can take a look at your company and see where you may find the best tax deductions and credits.

The first step your certified public accountant will take is to determine whether or not your company is in a California Enterprise Zone. There are forty-two Enterprise Zones located throughout the state, and they represent areas in the state that are economically disadvantaged. People living in these zones often have a hard time finding work, and so if you have a business where you are located in an Enterprise Zone and are hiring residents of the zone as well, you will qualify for a hiring tax, because the state and Federal governments want to encourage businesses to take up residence where they can do a great deal of good in providing jobs to people who need them.

Your company may qualify for a hiring tax if you hire people in need of work in the following categories: those who have been laid off or have been threatened with a layoff, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders, qualified disabled veterans, veterans who qualify for food stamps, summer youth hires as well as those age eighteen to forty in the Enterprise Zones. You may also earn a hiring tax credit when you offer work to qualifying ex-felons, people who have recently qualified for SSI, food stamps or temporary assistance for needy families, and qualifying disconnected youth between sixteen and twenty-five years old. If your company can provide work to people within these groups, your company may then qualify for up to $13,000 per employee each year in Enterprise Zone. Another tax advantage that your business may gain through the hiring tax credit is that you can go back in your tax returns for up to three years to claim these Enterprise Zone hiring benefits, and if you cannot use all of the work opportunity tax credits in a current year, likely you will be allowed to carry the credits over to the next year.

The earlier you learn about WOTC California and hiring tax credit benefits, the sooner your company can reap the rewards. A CPA knowledgeable about work opportunity tax credits can help you with your corporate tax planning and help you save money this tax season.