bjones
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The U.S. income tax is one of the most complicated subjects in all of human history. The amount of income tax you owe depends on a number of factors, including your income amount, type of income, age, marital status, dependents, disabilities, and deductions. The complete U.S. tax code is thousands of pages long. Fortunately, most of us fall into more easily definable categories for which a 100 page booklet will suffice. To figure the amount of tax you owe, you will need to fill out all the information on one of the three IRS 1040 forms. Instructions are provided free from the IRS. You can also hire a tax preparer to figure your taxes for you.
As an example, if you are over 18, single, with no children, and made $30,000 last year, you will owe 15% of your income in taxes. Your taxable income, however, is reduced by the expenses you had to pay that are directly related to your ability to make money. These can be taken as standard deductions. A single person with no children, using the standard deduction for 2009, doesn’t have to pay any tax on the first $9,350 of their income.
If you worked as an employee in a regular job, you probably don’t owe any taxes. This is because you have been prepaying your taxes as you go. A portion of your income is withheld and submitted to the government by your employer from each of your paychecks. This prepayment system usually results in an overpayment, so most individuals who work as employees receive a refund from their taxes because they paid too much throughout the year.
 Posted 5163 day ago
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