Tax Specialist

Tax Havens For Rv Owners

Tax Havens for RV Owners

by

Bill Weston

When it comes to determining the most RV friendly states, the typical criteria includes weather, attractions and accommodation for maintenance. Each individual RV traveler may have some additional criteria, but generally, these are the big concerns. However, a state can be friendly to RV owners without those owners ever having to set foot, or in this case put wheel to gravel, in them. How can this be? Well some states have designed tax policies that should appeal to the full time travelers. There are a lot of benefits of being a full time traveler. The open road is your address. However, the United States government does not recognize the open road as a street address. Now, having the government not know where you are certainly has its benefits. But when it comes to your taxes, not having a listed place of residency starts to be a little tricky. When you’re using your golden years to tour America’s interstate system, you may be free of your 9-5 schedule, but you’re still not free of Uncle Sam. Thankfully, as a full time traveler, you can list any state as your place of permanent residence. So what states are the most advantageous for RV travelers looking to catch a break during tax season?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QIvERcsnd8[/youtube]

It’s not as hard to figure this out as it sounds. There are only nine states in the union that don’t have an income tax. You’ve just eliminated 82% of the field right there! Those nine states are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. We can even eliminate a couple more on top of this. New Hampshire and Tennessee don’t have an income tax, but both states do tax interest income and dividends. Without breaking a sweat, the list has been whittled down to seven options. Alaska, like the other states, does meet the initial criteria of tax havens for the full time RV traveler, but apart from the issue of taxes, Alaska has one big problem: It’s Alaska! RV travelers, just like anyone else, is going to have to go through the process of renewing drivers licenses and vehicle registrations. Whatever state you list as your place of residency on your taxes is a state you are going to have to at least visit, probably annually. Alaska, although a beautiful state, is a little too far removed from the contiguous states to make such a trek plausible. So that minimizes the list to six potential states. The next natural step would be to look at the respective sales tax rates for these states, but unfortunately this measure comes to be of no use, due to the fact that the rates in each state are fairly similar. Most people not in the know would probably say that RV travelers are exempt from property taxes, and they are not necessarily wrong, but that’s just for houses. A personal property tax will affect the RV and possessions within it. Florida and Washington each have such a tax, so it’s best to take them off the list of candidates. All of a sudden, we’re left with a final four of Nevada, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. We didn’t even need an NCAA bracket to come up with that final four. Statistics suggest, that most full time travelers list South Dakota and Texas, but Nevada and Wyoming are states that will prove to be tax friendly as well. Texas provides other benefits for RV travelers, including the fact that it Texas absentee voting laws are some of the most lenient in the country. But these are the four states that accommodate RV owners the most on tax issues. You will never be able to fully shake Uncle Sam on the open road, but you don’t have to invite him in to your vehicle. He can hang onto the tailpipe. If you’re interested in camping

or

outdoors

check these out.

Bill Weston is a freelance writer for

LakeShore RV

.

Article Source:

ArticleRich.com

Tax Specialist

Is It Time To Electronically File Your Income Tax Returns In Canada

By Thor Hanso

The old saying goes that two things in life are certain: death and taxes. Although this is true taxes don’t have to be quite as painful as it was 15 years ago. Prior to the internet and personal computers for everyone filing your taxes was a terrible affair that required either an accountant or plenty of time. However, with the introduction of the internet filing your taxes is much easier than before.

However and quite surprisingly, is that not everyone in Canada files their taxes online. In fact, according to CBC in 2009 only 56% of tax returns were filed online. This means that 44% of the people are either using the old-cumbersome method of paper or using the automated telephone method, Telefile. Here is the breakdown of various tax-filing methods.

Paper – 11.29 Miillion returns (42.4%)

Netfile – 4.63 Million returns (17.4%) – The system that individuals use when filing their taxes through software applications like TurboTax, Ufile, etc

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuZCTb2sp8Q[/youtube]

EFile – 10.24 Million returns (38.5%) – The system that tax professionals use to file other people’s taxes.

Telefile – 445,067 returns (1.7%) – An automated system used for VERY simple tax returns.

In this computer aided world where the internet, computers and various tax processing software making things easier it’s hard to see people filing their taxes with paper. However, over 11 million people filed their taxes with paper in 2009! The need for a paper version is fairly clear, however, for anyone with a slightly complex tax return the increased value in using a computer aided version must outweigh the costs of the software!

In fact, it would be interesting to know if people filing their taxes with paper missed out on money (ie: deductions) that they didn’t know existed. Did they get their full RRSP deduction, tuition transferred, investment income, etc Is it was worth saving the money for the tax-software? In addition, filing your taxes online provides a much quicker turn-around time for your tax-return if the government owes you money!

The next question is what are the costs to the tax-payers of Canada to have a paper-tax filing system? Surely an online tax filing method must be cheaper than paying government employees for data-entry. What about placing the paper-forms online so everyone can file online and the data-entry step is removed!

The Canada Revenue Agency’s NETFILE system, the system used to file your taxes online, is turning 12 this year. This means we’ve been able to file our taxes online for 12 years. In this time the citizen’s of Canada have gone from 0% filing online to 56% this is a huge increase but still much lower than expected from a computer dominated world! How many more years till everyone is filing their taxes online or till the government makes it mandatory to file online?

Like it or not taxes are complex and the amount of different government programs is hard to keep track. Might as well use a tax software where you simply fill in the required boxes, it checks your return for errors and provides all the calculations accurately. With the various tax-software platforms the cost associated with the software is very competitive and can be as in-expensive as $6.

About the Author: For a full review of the

best Canadian Tax Software

visit Thor’s website

Best Tax Software

.

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

isnare.com/?aid=703586&ca=Finances