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Thank you for visiting my website. If this is your first time here then I'll explain a little of what my website is about. If any of you have websites, you know how difficult they are to keep current and vital. I have finally found a way to personally go in and post the most current financial and tax planning information available for the Small Business Client and the Real Estate Investors. My "Front page" will have what I am seeing to be the most important to my clients that I am in touch with on a daily basis. In addition, you will see Article Titles to the right that are subjects that are always current and interesting but may have small changes to them due to new tax laws, financial projections and economic changes. I will be posting various issues on my Blog weekly and you will have an opportunity to post your experience with those issues, ask questions and simply comment on the site itself. I will try to address as many questions as possible in my weekly Blog. If you find any of my articles useful, why not consider enrolling in my free program to receive tax updates by email. That way you will recieve instant notice of major changes and opportunities in tax and financial planning. In the future we will be offering fee based Memberships for more detailed and comprehensive articles, interactive personal financial worksheets, Webinars and a more detailed Blog site. |
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Tax Alerts
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Written by Cathy Cavanagh
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Sunday, 17 May 2009 |
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2009-2016 Tax Credits for Solar, Wind and Geothermal
This is my personal favorite tax credits ever. These credits are uncapped and unlimited when you install solar, wind, or geothermal energy improvements in ANY personal residence you own.
The credit is 30% of what you spend on the qualifying improvements and carries over if you do not use it all in the year of installation.
In addition to the hard cost of the above, you can also count the labor it costs you to install these improvements.
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Tax Alerts
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Written by Cathy Cavanagh
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Saturday, 16 May 2009 |
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People are becoming aware of the potential of having to pay ordinary Income Taxes on the amount of debt they owe that is forgiven. This is being seen in both mortgages for non-primary residential property and credit card debt. If you are in this situation you need to be aware of the “insolvency” rules. If you are essentially insolvent* both before and after the debt was cancelled you probably would not owe any tax on that amount. But you have to attached the right information with your tax return.
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Real Estate
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Written by Cathy Cavanagh
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Saturday, 16 May 2009 |
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The inability for Buyers to get financing is the number one reason homes that have offers do not close. There are many factors to qualifying for mortgages at this time and both the Buyers and the Realtors are having to cope with meeting terms that seem to fluctuate weekly at this point.
1. Be prepared to present a full current financial statement with the Fair Market Value of all Assets and Libilities.
2. Have at least three years of tax returns available for the Lender as well as a current year summary of income. Lenders want to know you are still producing income. Know that the Lenders are actually confirming with the IRS that the tax returns you gave them were filed "as is".
3. Most Lenders will no longer accept a "no doc" loan application. In otherwords, you have to have your taxes done and the income must show you are qualified for the Loan.
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Real Estate
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Written by Cathy Cavanagh
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Saturday, 16 May 2009 |
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Foreclosure of Primary Residence – Options to Consider
If you start digging into the Foreclosure options you will see there are Judicial and Non-Judicial foreclosures and recourse and non-recourse states. There are some reasons to consider letting your primary residence go into foreclosure even if you are not “bankrupt”.
First of all you need to know if your primary residence is in a non-recourse State. The following are non-recourse States:
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Real Estate
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Written by Cathy Cavanagh
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Saturday, 16 May 2009 |
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Basically a Short Sale is where the Home Owner owes more than their property is worth, but they are not late on payments or in foreclosure. They negotiate with their Lender to market their property. If an offer comes in for less than the mortgage, some Banks are willing to release the Home Owner from the difference. THIS HAS TO BE IN WRITING! Recently, Lenders are not releasing this portion of the debt and coming after Home Owners later – they have a six year statute of limitation on the contract to file legal action to collect. They can lien property in any State property is owned by the Home Owners and would be valid for up to 20 years.
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Real Estate
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Written by Cathy Cavanagh
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Friday, 17 April 2009 |
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The Northwest Multiple's March Closed Sales report showed a lot of changes from February. Both King County and Snohomish County showed the largest year-to-date drops in Average and Midian prices since the downturn started. Snohomish has dropped around 15% y-t-d- and King has dropped around
17%. I had heard this from my clients in the I-5 corridor but seeing the actually stats was really interesting.
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