 Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news! Before toasting the new year, taxpayers should review this to-do list. Oh great. I mean the IRS is most likely going to remind us the taxes are like around the corner and therefore we may want to change our champagne selection from Don Perignon to some kind of cheap sparkling wine or possibly just like water in a plastic champagne glass that you blow bubbles into just before toasting so that you could pose for the new year's photo. What's that Phil? No, I did not know champagne companies were at net zero greenhouse emissions. How did they do that? I see the champagne companies captured carbon from the environment and then stored it in the champagne bottles lowering the company's carbon footprint. Yeah but Phil, I mean they then sell the champagne bottles to people planning on opening them, exploding both the carbon and champagne all over the place while pretending they're holding on to their Johnson. Yeah I know Phil that it's not the champagne companies fault that people do with whatever they want with the bottle after they buy it but I mean don't you think it's a little disingenuous for the champagne company to claim their carbon neutral given the situation? I mean honestly why don't you ever listen to people who actually know what they're talking about and have done actual productive stuff like oh I don't know Elon Musk for example with his whole electric cars and everything. Okay okay Phil I'm sorry I'm sorry I mentioned the Twitter Nazi. I'm just saying plus calling him a Twitter Nazi seems a little bit extreme doesn't it? Okay okay Phil I know no I don't want you editing in another video of me on the can in my next YouTube vid. I get it let's just let's just change the subject with a joke. Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day unless maybe he doesn't like fish or like has some kind of terrible fish allergy in which case given a man a fish could kill him. But if you teach that same man who has like the fish allergy to fish he can poison himself. Concentrate concentrate. I want a dogoo. They're possibly saving you a lawsuit. God's sake don't eat another bite. Oh I couldn't budge a blade. Mr. Simpsonson I shall be brunt. We have reason to believe you have eaten poison. I mean for example the current administration is working on a program teaching people how to catch and eat bats so as to avoid you know gain of function culpability. Poison? What should I do? What should I do? Tell me quick. No need to panic there's a map to the hospital on the back of the menu. IRS tax tip 2022-191 December 15th 2022 whether they plan to stay up to greet the new year or go to bed early taxpayers can get ready for 2023 by reviewing these common end of year tasks. People can always visit IRS Get Ready page there's a link to that here for info on filing their tax return. Here are a few things they should keep on their radar. Check individual taxpayer identification number there's a link to that here the IRS issues itins itins itins to people who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification number but who don't have and are not eligible to obtain a social security number so clearly to the IRS to the government you are a number you got to have your number or else the IRS doesn't know who you are so if your number has expired whatever that may be then you're going to have to update it so if the ITIN was not included on a federal tax return at least once for tax years 2019 2020 and 2021 the ITIN will expire on December 31st 2022 individuals only need to renew an ITIN if it has expired and is needed on a federal tax return find information about retirement plans irs.gov irs.gov irs.gov v v for victory over taxes that has a end of year tax information about retirement plans so you can check that out so that's one of the kind of last-minute tax planning oftentimes that you can kind of do in other words if you have a 401k plan for example you might want to try to maximize what you can put into the 401k plan because by the end of the year then you may not be able to put into a 401k plan but some other options possibly if you can still put money into like an IRA for example that's one of the last-minute kind of things that you might be able to do and get an idea of how much you can put in by actually filling out the tax return and the software will often help you out to see whether or not you might be able to put more money in for the IRA so it can be quite useful as well when you're doing this retirement plan kind of situation and thinking if you could put money into a retirement plan which is one of the biggest kind of benefits that you can get oftentimes to see if you can get the cash flow in order to do it because one of the restrictions of course is that you need the money to put it into the retirement plan in order to do so to get any kind of tax benefit generally from it and in any case these include resources for individuals about retirement planning contributions and withdrawals we got contribution contribute salary deferral taxpayers can make a salary deferral to a retirement plan this helps maximize the tax credit available for eligible contributions there's a link to that here taxpayers should make sure their total salary deferral contributes contributions do not exceed 20,500 limit for 2022 so you know obviously when you're thinking about putting money into these into a type of plan one of the benefits oftentimes of a 401k plan for example is you might be able to put more money into it although you you typically would have to do that basically before the end of the year and of course you've got that kind of cash flow type of situation when you're putting money into say an IRA you're are far more limited to how much money that you can put into an IRA but it's that last minute time a tax planning thing that you have usually until you file the tax return or April 15th not including extensions to kind of figure out if you can put any more money into something like that some kind of retirement plans by the way might have an extended time period for likes like a sole proprietorship if you're if you have an IRA if you have a retirement plan that's like a a sep plan for example then you you might be able to put money in for tax year 2022 after December so but those are some of the things you want to look at what availability do you have for the retirement plan do you have to put the money in before the end of the year and then how much can you put in in terms of the limits how high you can go as well as of course your budget how come how much can you put in and then and then if you can have some options to plan after you actually after the year closes that's a great tool because then you can actually do your taxes and figure out how much money you could still possibly put in at that point in time which could be beneficial but you need the cash flow to do it so donate to charity taxpayers must make any donation to a tax exempt organization they want to deduct on their 2022 return by December 31st so remember that we're basically on a cash flow basis for the most part for taxes so if you want to have a deduction usually it has to be made in the year that that that you have to give the money in that year in this case 2022 so you're running up to the deadline if you want to have some of these deductions now obviously there's limitations to that if you try to prepay stuff and whatnot the iris is going to be skeptical of that so if you try to take advantage of the cash flow kind of system by prepaying a bunch of stuff but for this case charity if you want to get a charitable deduction you didn't you generally have to do that before the end of the year so most charitable charitable cash donations qualify for the deduction however there are some exceptions there's a link to that here cash contributions include those made by check credit card or debit card as well as unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses in connection with a volunteer services to a qualified charitable organization and then you've got the IRA IRA owners age 70 and a half or over have the option to transfer up to 100,000 to charity tax-free each year so notice if you're over the threshold where you have to basically be be pulling money out of your IRA or your retirement plan then you're in a situation where the iris is forcing you to take the money out why are they forcing you to take the money out in like a required distribution because they want to they want to get the tax on it at that point because you got the deferral the tax benefit when you put the money into the retirement plan so then the question is well if I don't actually need the money right now it would it would it be more beneficial for me to give that money possibly to charity and maybe have it go a little bit further than than it otherwise would and then I can give the money to people that you know might not might use it to what I wanted to do right use it a bit more accurately or efficiently so these transfers known as qualified charitable distributions or QCDs offer eligible older Americans a great way to give to charity before the end of the year for those who are at least 72 OCDs count toward the ira owners required minimum distribution for the year so get banked and set up direct deposit direct deposit there's a link to that here gives taxpayers access to the refund faster than a paper check so if you're expecting and relying on that that refund and you want it as soon as possible then you typically want to file an electronic tax return and you want to set up your your direct deposit in information for it so those without a bank account can learn how to open an account at an FDIC insured bank there's a link to that here or through the national credit union locator tool there's a link to that here veterans should see the veterans benefit banking program there's a link to that here for access to financial services at a participating banks connect with the IRS taxpayers can use social media yeah the IRS is on the social media thing all over the place these days they're super popular so you could get the latest tax and filing tips for the IRS honestly I just look at the news personally if anybody is getting extra value from like the twitter account from the IRS or something like that or from face messages I would be interested to see you know what added value they're getting from that I'm kind of curious to know or if that's just an easy way to get the same information because I would think twitter is a tool for getting something faster than you otherwise would but I would think the organization itself is not going to start giving leaking information faster you would have to follow people within the IRS possibly for that so I would think you wouldn't get a whole lot of added information from like a twitter facebook maybe it's just easier to get your news feed and facebook I hear facebook might be turning off their news feed because their congress is after them or something and then Instagram I don't know what added information you would get from Instagram I don't know so I don't really see the added value but it might be worth following them there and I'm curious to know if anybody has any ideas on the benefits they're getting from that over and above the just the news is to your email or something but the IRS shares information on things like tax changes scam alerts initiatives tax products and taxpayer services these social media tools are available in different languages including english spanish and american sign language think about tax refunds the fastest way taxpayers can get a tax refund is by filing electronically choosing direct deposit but no one should ever plan to get a refund by a certain date so they say like 21 days is the average or something but it's just an average so you don't want to go out and buy that champagne bottle or whatever thinking that you're going to get the tax refund before you get the tax refund wait till it's in your hand if you can unless you have emergency situations because stuff can happen it's the IRS they have sticky fingers sometimes on the refunds so this is especially true for those who want to use their refund to make major purchases or buy or pay bills so there's a link to some of that stuff if you want to do some of your planning here which is how you obviously should spend your new year and and uh in last minute planning because if you want to do anything that's going to have an impact on your taxes cash flow basis you got to do it before the end of the year oftentimes so it might be worthwhile to check out any last minute stuff you can look into