Garage Door Tax Credits

31. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: General Tax · Tags: , ,

Replacing a garage door in 2010 won’t just add style and curb appeal to your home – it can also save you money off the bottom line (up to 00) of your income taxes. The stimulus legislation signed by President Obama on Feb, 17, 2009 provides tax credits for energy-efficient home improvements, including qualifying insulated garage doors. That means that adding a new garage door in 2009 or 2010 can save you money by helping to lower home energy consumption and costs, AND it will help pay for itself this year through the tax credit incentive.

The Time to Buy is Now

Homeowners now have another significant reason to buy qualifying insulated residential garage doors – a tax credit. Tax credits are more valuable than an equivalent tax deduction because a tax credit reduces tax dollar-for-dollar, while a deduction only decreases the amount of income that is taxed.

How to Identify an Eligible Garage Door

To be eligible for the tax credit, the purchased garage door must meet all of the following criteria:

The tax credits are available for garage door purchases “placed in service” from Jan. 1, 2009, through Dec. 31, 2010. Your tax credit is based on the total material cost of the purchase (the cost of installation does not qualify). The tax credit is equal to the sum of 30 percent of all qualified energy-saving improvements installed in an existing home in the calendar years of 2009 and 2010. The maximum amount a taxpayer may claim is 00 over the lifetime of the tax credit. The door must have a U-factor (rate of heat loss) equal to or less than 0.30. Ask your professional dealer/installer if your door qualifies. You will need a manufacturer’s certification statement and a breakdown of the material and labor costs. The door must be an insulated residential garage door. It must be installed on an insulated garage. The envelope of the space must be insulated including walls and ceiling space. The door perimeter must have a means to control air infiltration (hot/cold mechanical ventilation). The door must be expected to remain in service for at least five years. The garage must be part of the taxpayer’s principal U.S. residence.

Insulated garage doors can make a noticeable difference in the temperature of your home. If your home has an attached garage, chances are the room next to your garage is one of the coldest rooms in the winter. Cold air in the winter (and warm air in the summer) can sneak in through the garage and into your home, increasing the amount of energy your home needs for heating and air conditioning. In addition to saving homeowners money and energy, new garage doors can be a stylish way to improve a home’s appearance and value.

6500.00 existing homeowner tax credit

31. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: General Tax · Tags: , , ,

Good News for existing Homeowners and prospective buyers. Existing Homeowners can now take advantage of the Home Buyer tax credit if they have owned and lived in their current home for the past 5 years.

The Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 extends the deadline for qualifying home purchases from Nov. 30, 2009, to April 30, 2010. Additionally, if a buyer enters into a binding contract by April 30, 2010, the buyer has until June 30, 2010, to settle on the purchase.

The maximum credit amount remains at ,000 for a first-time homebuyer –– that is, a buyer who has not owned a primary residence during the three years up to the date of purchase.

But the new law also provides a “long-time resident” credit of up to ,500 to others who do not qualify as “first-time homebuyers.” To qualify this way, a buyer must have owned and used the same home as a principal or primary residence for at least five consecutive years of the eight-year period ending on the date of purchase of a new home as a primary residence.

For all qualifying purchases in 2010, taxpayers have the option of claiming the credit on either their 2009 or 2010 tax returns.

A new version of Form 5405, First-Time Homebuyer Credit, will be available in the next few weeks. A taxpayer who purchases a home after Nov. 6 must use this new version of the form to claim the credit. Likewise, taxpayers claiming the credit on their 2009 returns, no matter when the house was purchased, must also use the new version of Form 5405. Taxpayers who claim the credit on their 2009 tax return will not be able to file electronically but instead will need to file a paper return.

A taxpayer who purchased a home on or before Nov. 6 and chooses to claim the credit on an original or amended 2008 return may continue to use the current version of Form 5405.

Income Limits Rise

The new law raises the income limits for people who purchase homes after Nov. 6. The full credit will be available to taxpayers with modified adjusted gross incomes (MAGI) up to 5,000, or 5,000 for joint filers. Those with MAGI between 5,000 and 5,000, or 5,000 and 5,000 for joint filers, are eligible for a reduced credit. Those with higher incomes do not qualify.

For homes purchased prior to Nov. 7, 2009, existing MAGI limits remain in place. The full credit is available to taxpayers with MAGI up to ,000, or 0,000 for joint filers. Those with MAGI between ,000 and ,000, or 0,000 and 0,000 for joint filers, are eligible for a reduced credit. Those with higher incomes do not qualify.

New Requirements

Several new restrictions on purchases that occur after Nov. 6 go into effect with the new law:

(a) Dependents are not eligible to claim the credit.

(b) No credit is available if the purchase price of a home is more than 0,000.

(c) A purchaser must be at least 18 years of age on the date of purchase.

For Members of the Military

Members of the Armed Forces and certain federal employees serving outside the U.S. have an extra year to buy a principal residence in the U.S. and still qualify for the credit. An eligible taxpayer must buy or enter into a binding contract to buy a home by April 30, 2011, and settle on the purchase by June 30, 2011.

To Summarize:

In summary, here are the requirements for the ,500 home buyer tax credit:

Your new home must have a signed contract by April 30, 2010 and you must close on the new home by June 30, 2010. Income phase outs will begin at 5,000 for single filers and 5,000 for married filing joint. The credit is for primary homes that cost 0,000 or less. You must have owned and resided in your current home for at least 5 years. The credit is for the purchase of a primary residence.

Bags and value

31. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: General Tax · Tags: ,

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao chaired a State Council on the 12th executive meeting. The meeting decided to support labor-intensive small and medium enterprises, to support industrial upgrading, increased twice in the second half on the basis of the export tax rebate rate, since December 1, 2008, to further improve the part of the labor-intensive products, mechanical and electrical products and other influenced by the export tax rebate rate. To implement the decision of the State Council, Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Taxation recently issued the “Ministry of Finance State Administration of Taxation on the improvement of labor-intensive commodities such as VAT export tax rebate rate of notification” (Cai Shui [2008] 144).

Notice a clear increase of the 3770 tax rebates for a specific range of goods, mainly as follows: The rubber tires and other parts of the main or all of the artificial fast-growing wood as raw material part of the forest products tax from 5% to 9%; will Metal extrusion die with the mold parts, glass of tax from 5% to 11%; will freeze on shrimp, crabs and some other aquatic rebate from 5% to 13%; to bags, shoes, hat, umbrella, furniture, bedding, lamps, clocks and other goods tax rate from 11% to 13%; to toothpaste and some other chemical products, stone, aluminum and other non-ferrous metal processing materials with commodities such as tax rate from 5% , 9% to 11%, 13%; to agricultural pumps, motorcycles, bicycles, household appliances, mechanical and electrical products and some other tax rate from 9% to 11%, 11% to 13%, 13% to 14 %.

 

Attachment:

On the improvement of labor-intensive products such as commodity export tax rebate rate of VAT Notice

Tax [2008] 144

 

Provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, separately listed cities (bureaus), state tax, the Finance Bureau of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps:

  State Council’s approval, decided to raise some of the goods VAT export tax rebate rate (hereinafter referred to as tax rebates). Notice on the matter are as follows:

    First, enhance the scope of tax rebate rate of goods

(A) some of the rubber products, forest products tax from 5% to 9%.

(B) part of the mold, the glass of the tax from 5% to 11%.

(C) some of the fish’s rebates from 5% to 13%.

(D) to bags, shoes, hats, umbrellas, furniture, bedding, lamps, clocks and other goods tax rebate from 11% to 13%.

(E) some of the chemical products, stone, wood and other non-ferrous metal processing products rebate rate from 5%, 9% to 11%, 13%.

(Vi) some of the tax rebate rate of machinery and electronic products from 9% to 11%, 11% to 13%, 13% to 14%.

The tax rate improve the specific product name, tariff and tax rates in the annex.

  Second, the execution time

The notice required the adjustment of tax rates since December 1, 2008 from the Executive. Specific execution time, the “declaration of export goods (export tax rebates only)” Customs export date indicated.

Hereby notified.

Tax Credits for Mortgages in Canada

28. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: General Tax · Tags: , ,

Home renovation tax credit:
Homeowners can claim a non-refundable 15% tax credit on eligible home renovation costs incurred and paid after January 27, 2009, and before February 1, 2010, under agreements entered into after January 27, 2009.

The tax credit is available on expenses exceeding ,000, but a maximum of ,000 of expenses qualify per family unit, so that the maximum credit will be ,350 (i.e., ,000 x 15%).

Eligible
Ineligible

§ Renovating a kitchen, bathroom or basement

§ New carpet or hardwood floors

§ Building an addition, deck, fence or retaining wall

§ A new furnace or water heater

§ Painting the interior or exterior of a house

§ Resurfacing a driveway

§ Laying new sod

§ Purchase of furniture and appliances (ex: refrigerator, stove and couch)

§ Purchase of tools

§ Carpet cleaning

§ Maintenance contracts (ex: furnace cleaning, snow removal, lawn care, and pool cleaning)

Home Buyers’ Plan:
Commencing January 28, 2009, first-time home buyers can withdraw ,000 from a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) to purchase or build a home, without incurring tax. Previously, the limit was ,000.

First-time home buyers’ tax credit:
First-time home buyers that acquire a qualifying home after January 27, 2009, can claim a 15% non-refundable tax credit on up to ,000, for a maximum credit of 0. If a home is purchased jointly, the total credit that may be claimed by all purchasers is 0. The unused portion of the credit can be transferred to a spouse or common-law partner.

Mortgage Broker Kelowna

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Frbiz.com reports Export drawback of jiangsu foreign trade enterprise stable develop

28. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: General Tax · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Nearly two months, our export scale continuous and New Year in October, the monthly export by narrowed to a national average decline than digits, narrow 4.6 percent, the total export by a former 9 months 1.5 percentage points, narrow, the key areas, key industries, key markets, key enterprises are undermined by the momentum of development.

Our trade with the rapid rise of tax departments actively implementing the exit drawback policy are inseparable. In order to deal with the international financial crisis, our country since last August 7 times raised export drawback. Province duty system actively implementing the state promotes the export tax policies and measures. 1 ~ 10 months, the tax refund (adjustable) system for library frontal 920 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.1%, including export tax rebate 547 billion yuan, with adjustable library is free in the country, 373 million yuan.

According to preliminary statistics, this year in export trade, such as flat because of higher, the drawback refund tax increase about 105 billion yuan.

Export drawback policy implementation, reduced in cost of financing, export enterprise, promoted the recovery of foreign trade. According to statistics, 1 ~ 10 months, the total import and export volume realize 2712 million us dollars, including import and export 1,595 billion 17. Import and export scale remain second in the export and import, respectively, and 14% of national 16.7% respectively than 0.7 and improve early 0.8 per cent.

Since this year, faced with the severe export situation, the tax authorities at all levels pertinently actively export drawback policy propaganda, will support export of related policies and timely cash to export enterprises. They further investigation, the actual difficulties on time, and make full use of “export commodity tax refund (exemption) information management system”, the function such as feedback data to export tax rebates for aspects of business enterprise, try to solve the reminder service tax problems.

In addition, all of the new and small manufacturing export enterprise to increase support. The 1.4 million of export enterprises, by October, refund amount about 10.9 million yuan.

For large scale, export credit, export business enterprise, the longer they make full use of information management, take the examination procedures to simplify and accelerate the progress schedule and drawback tax audit, tax review progress schedule and keep pace with the basic.

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