Tag: TAXES

TurboTax, and its parent company Intuit, had promised to modify its tax return software to include guidance for same-sex couples filing jointly in California, Washington and Nevada. On Friday, however, the company announced that it would not be providing those features, and that it may be necessary to seek the help of a tax professional. At issue is a new IRS rule that requires same-sex couples ...

As if tax season weren't enough of a headache, security experts are warning that this year may be an unusually perilous one for those who file online. Between realistic-looking sites and e-mails, cyber-criminals have been on the malware warpath. Download a phony IRS form, and you may begin unwittingly sharing your Social Security number, address and other personal data. Jeff Horne, Webroot's ...

Google has issued a challenge to data-nerds: to take data from the site WhatWePayFor.com, which tracks where your tax dollars are allocated, and create a user-friendly way to visualize it. Google has gotten the ball rolling with its own interactive infographic of differently sized bubbles, each representing a distinct category of government spending. ...

E-mail may save a lot of paper, but according to the Guardian, our electronic missives do have some impact on the environment. Although authors Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark acknowledge that e-mails will never probably comprise a major component of our energy consumption, they claim that the energy required to send and receive our messages can quickly add up. According to their estimates, a ...

When freelance writer Marilyn Bess sliced open an envelope from the city of Philadelphia last May, she probably assumed she was getting summons or jury duty. Unfortunately, though, she got a shock: the City of Brotherly Love had decided that Bess, due to ad revenues from her blog MS Philly Organic, owed her loving municipal government $300 for a "business privilege license." The problem? Since ...

In the midst of our cash-strapped economy, the federal government is now looking into legalizing online gambling. The New York Times reports that the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill that would allow "online poker and other nonsports betting, overturning a 2006 federal ban," which was mostly ineffective in the first place. The Times notes that the bill would have the Treasury ...

Share With tax season nearing a close, scammers are boosting efforts to steal sensitive information from people trying to file their taxes at the last minute. According to USA Today, a flurry of fake tax forms recently showed up in inboxes, on Twitter and as search results on the Web. Examples include an advertisement or malicious link, which could request your Social Security number or login ...

Right now, there are a bunch of angry former Amazon Affiliate program members in Colorado. A new law signed by the state's governor Bill Ritter would require Amazon to pay sales taxes if its affiliates, meaning Web sites and bloggers who refer purchasers to them, are based in the state. In response, Amazon discontinued its program, leaving thousands of affiliates -- many of whom rely on the ...

France has never been one to hold back when it comes to taxes; after all, someone's gotta pay for all those pesky little luxuries like universal health care. Now, however, the country of Gaul is reportedly thinking of taxing Internet giants in an effort to save its own artistic Joe les Plumbers. According to Ars Technica, French officials are considering levying a tax on Google and other ...

Just as those of us in the States have (hopefully) done this month, the citizens of Sweden will file their income taxes in May. Unlike us, though, many of them will do so with a few simple clacks on their cell phones' keypads. Over the past five years, an increasing number of Swedes have taken to their government's method of filing taxes via text message, according to CNET. Of course, these tales ...

Last week, the BBC reported that the Swedish Tax Authority (STA) has launched an investigation into the world of online stripping, a business that the Swedish government seems to regard as lucrative and largely unreported. Dag Hardyson, the head of STA's Internet trade project, believes that as many as 500 Swedish women work as professional, online strippers, and that none of them have filed a ...

In an attempt to attract youngsters, employees of one Nebraska public library recently instituted a gaming workshop, until, that is, constroversy paralyzed the effort. One local taxpayer caught wind of the Omaha librarians' unorthodox event via the above video, which shows the librarians playing the game 'Rock Band' in what appears to be the library's study room. The librarians had posted the ...

A new study has found that the United States would make $52 billion over the next decade if lawmakers decided to lift a three-year ban on Internet gambling and tax the maligned industry. The study, prepared by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, may prove to be laying the groundwork for the repeal of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, a generally ineffective piece of ...

As April 15th rapidly approaches, and as more and more of us become under- (if not un-)employed, one CPA named Glenn Eisenbruch is willing to ease our burdens, showing us how to strike tech from our taxes at LaptopMag.com. We here at Switched are pleased to find out that -- whether incorporated as a business, or not -- any self-employed person (including bloggers, thankfully) can write off his ...

With New York facing a $15 billion budget deficit , it should surprise no one that the Empire State's leaders are getting creative in their search for a solution. New York Governor George Patterson wants to place a four-percent tax on Internet downloads of books, music, and other content. While some people are calling this the iPod tax, we all know that it should be called the "porn tax." ...