When you use your car for both personal and business reasons and you are not fully reimbursed through your employer for the business expenses, you can deduct those costs from your taxes. How do you go about claiming these deductions? Assuming that you itemize, you have two general paths:

• Standard Mileage Method – The IRS prints flat rates of reimbursement per mile driven for each calendar year. For business use of your vehicle in tax year 2019, the standard mileage rate is 58 cents per mile, up from the 2018 value of 54.5 cents per mile.

• Actual Expense Method – Rather than calculate an average based on miles, you can calculate the actual expenses related to the non-personal use including gas, oil, maintenance costs, depreciation, tolls, parking fees, insurance, and other applicable expen...

A stable income is critical to a comfortable retirement – as is limiting the amount of that income that you give to Uncle Sam. Maximizing retirement income and minimizing taxes requires advance planning – as illustrated in these seven tips.

1. Use a Roth IRA

Because Roth IRAs are funded with post-tax dollars, they are flexible retirement income sources and excellent for plugging retirement income gaps. You may draw contributions out at any time and earnings may be withdrawn tax-free if you are at least age 59½ and have had the account for at least five years.

Roth IRA contributions are less attractive when you are in higher-earning years where a high tax bracket applies. Contribute to a Roth IRA when tax conditions are favorable or convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in a year where your adjusted gross income (AGI) is low, taking the tax hit while you'r...

In general, deducting pet expenses on your tax return can get you into hot water with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Usually pet expenses will not hold up should the IRS audit you. However, specific cases exist that allow you to take legitimate tax deductions for spending on your pet.

Regardless of how you justify your pet deductions, make sure that you have receipts and documentation for all expenses you claim on your tax return or they will be disallowed.

Guard Pets

Guard animals could pass muster for a deduction for your business. If you consider deducting your pet as a guard animal, make sure that they actually perform guard duties. Your pet's breed should be one that is often considered that of a typical guard animal. For instance, a pit bull could be considered a guard dog while a Chihuahua probably would not.

It would be beneficial if you could pr...

What two words cause the most panic to Americans? There are probably a hundred funny responses running through your mind right now, but we were thinking of a less humorous response: "IRS audit."

Your odds of avoiding an audit are usually pretty good. The IRS reviewed almost 1 million tax returns in fiscal year (FY) 2018, resulting in a low audit rate of 0.5%. Raising red flags in your return are likely to increase your odds of being audited. Some of these cannot be avoided, but others are essentially errors in judgment.

• You Are Wealthy – The IRS disproportionately audits wealthier Americans. Why? As the famous bank robber Willie Sutton allegedly said, "Because that's where the money is." Think of it as a return on investment of IRS time. As Betterment Head of Tax Eric Bronnenkant puts it, "The IRS audits wealthy people because they're the ones who are the most likely to get an adjustment out of it."
  
  While there may be an element...