1. Estimated Tax Payments: If you are a sole proprietor, a partnership, or a shareholder in a Sub-chapter S corporation, you are considered self-employed. Since you don't have an employer deducting taxes from your pay throughout the year, you are responsible for making advance payments of your estimated federal income tax. Estimated tax payments are due quarterly - on April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15 - and are filed on a Form 1040-ES. At the end of the tax year, you will file a final Form 1040 with a Schedule C, which itemizes your business expenses for the whole year.

To avoid underpayment penalties - which are substantial - individuals whose adjusted gross incomes were under $150,000 need to have paid at least 100 percent of their prior year's tax bill. People whose incomes were over $150,000 need to have paid 110 percent of the amount they owed in the prior year.

It's in your interest to make your estimated tax payments during the year. This system also keeps you from owing a large sum of money all at once, which can be overwhelming. If your state of residence has income taxes, as most do, you will have to make estimated tax payments throughout the year for state taxes as well.

2. Self-Employment Tax: Your estimated tax payments will also include the federal self-employment tax - Social Security and Medicare. If you were employed by someone else, your employer would pay half of your Social Security and Medicare and the other half would come out of your paycheck. Self-employed people must pay the full amount themselves; however, 50 percent of the self employment tax is deductible on the 1040 form.

What if you are a salaried employee and you operate a home-based business as a sideline? In this case, you'll be filing both the usual Form 1040 and a Schedule C for your home business deductions; you may also have to pay additional self-employment tax. No matter how little your sideline income is, you should be aware that it is subject to tax - although by taking advantage of the home-office deduction, you may find you owe little or no taxes.

3. Employment Taxes: Home-based workers who employ others must comply with many additional tax requirements. IRS Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide, covers the federal regulations, and your state tax agency can inform you of state requirements for employers with regard to income, state unemployment, and workers' compensation taxes.

If you employ your children or grandchildren, their earnings are deductible. Family businesses do not need to pay Social Security or unemployment taxes on minor children, and the children pay no income taxes on the first $3,000 of earned income. To substantiate this claim, keep time records of their work (the records will be more believable to the IRS if a non-relative keeps them), note the work done, and pay family at the rate you would pay a non-family member for the same work.

4. State and Local Taxes: Depending on where you live, you will face a variety of state and local tax requirements. All but nine states (Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada, Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Texas, and Washington) have state personal-income taxes. But even those may have taxes on business. For example, Florida levies an income tax on corporations. Some cities, like Kansas City, have earnings taxes apart from the state income tax; others have unusual taxes on business. New York, for example, taxes unincorporated businesses.

When you are a travel nurse, then you need to have a pretty good understanding of per diem rates and how they might lower your taxes. Many travel nurses believe that per diem is only a tax benefit that staffing agencies offer and yet, surprisingly, others do not. This misunderstanding about what per diem is and how it may affect your taxes is an important financial issue that you need to understand. How you report your per diem earnings could mean the difference in thousands of dollars in tax savings.

Whether you are looking to maximize deductions, reduce taxes, or increase your returns, travel nurses should take the time to learn as much as possible about the IRS per diem tax rules. Certainly, one way to learn is to go to the IRS home page and download publication 1542 and read the rules so that you have a working idea of what to expect by tax time next year. Another great resource, especially, now a days is to do your taxes yourself, if you have a personal computer or laptop. Turbo Tax is a great software program. Not only is it inexpensive and tax deductible itself, but it is very easy to work when you use the step-by-step wizard. You can walk through your entire tax return, and file it electronically. You can get your refund deposited directly into your checking account in a matter of days.

A couple of travel expenses to have a heads up about include:

* The travel nurse has a permanent tax home
* The travel nurse takes a temporary (less than 12 months) assignment away
from their tax home

Any travel nurse meeting the requirements outlined by the IRS can claim deductions for certain travel expenses or receive tax free reimbursements and tax free per diem allowance payments. These tax benefits are one of the great perks of being a travel nurse.

Unfortunately, one of the most common tax mistakes that a travel nurse makes is not being educated or even aware of the tax advantages to per diem deductions. Now that you are are aware that savvy travel nurses are eligible for per diem deductions for every day that they are on temporary assignment away from their tax home, pass on the work to your co-workers, or email them this article so that they can bookmark this overview and take advantage of these tax benefits themselves.

It is important to be aware that some companies don't pay per diem allowance, pay too little per diem, or only pay per diem as a function of hourly pay. You can learn what these scenarios mean for you personal tax situation by consulting with a tax advisor or researching the IRS rules. You deserve to to get every dollar of per diem related deductions that you are entitled to, and we hope that this article has help you.

Note: while much care has been taken to make this article accurate, tax rules do change. Please be sure that you are up-to-date on the latest IRS rules. This article is meant for informational purposes only and is not meant to replace the advice of a skilled tax advisor.

H&R Block has asked two competitors to stop making pay stub loans.

In a quarterly conference call with analysts on Wednesday, Chief Executive Mark Ernst asked his top two competitors, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. and Liberty Tax Service, to stop selling unsecured cash payment made before the filing of an income tax return.

"The economics of the product have more in common with payday lending than refund lending," Ernst said, referring to loans often criticized for spiraling levels of interest.

"While there is no question that there's a need for unsecured credit, the association of these high-cost pay-stup loans with tax preparation generally is not good for consumers and clearly takes the professional tax services industry into a direction that we should all wish to avoid."

Ernst estimates that the competition's use of pay-stub loans contributed to the loss of 250,000 H&R Block clients in January alone.

John Hewitt of Liberty Tax Services, said that he "detests" pay-stub loans but sold them as a trial after seeing how many customers he was losing to Jackson Hewitt. Jackson Hewitt reports that itt sold 1.3 million pay-stub loans under the name "Money Now" during the first quarter of 2006. Revenues for that period increased by 25%.

"It's an inferior product and costs more," Hewitt said. "I fully believe Jackson Hewitt saw an additional 250,000 to 300,000 returns."

Pay stub loans are different from refund-anticipation loans based on timing.

Refund-anticipation loans occur after the client files his taxes. The borrower will pay fees on the loan.

Pay stub loans are sold before the client receives a W-2. The tax preparer uses the client's final pay stub of the year to estimate the refund. The loan is made on this estimation.

If figures change, the taxpayer may not get a refund, leaving him or her unable to pay back the pay-stub loan.

Ernst appears ready to counteract the new loans offered by competitors.

"I would tell you that we will not stand by and lose ground to competitors who choose to go down this path," he said. "We feel we have ways to respond that hold with our values

Republicans in the Senate are moving forward this week with efforts to repeal the estate tax.

The estate-tax measure is unlikely to become a successful bill. The measure will likely draw support from a majority of senators, but is expected to fall short of the 60 votes required to stop a Democratic filibuster.

The estate-tax repeal could find new life in an election-year compromise between a Republican in a Democratic state and a Democrat in a Republican state.

Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona has been talking with Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus. Baucus is the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. New York Democrat Senator Charles Schumer is taking part in the talks, as well. Aides say that a deal should be reached in the next couple of days.

The senators are working on legislation that would exempt all taxpayers, except the very wealthy, from paying taxes on their estates. This could exempt estates up to $10 million. The senators are also discussing lowering the tax rates that individuals pay on the value of their estates when they die.

Currently, the estate tax is being lowered each year from the rate of 55% in 2001 to 0% in 2010. In 2011, the rate will return to 55%. The rollback was a part of President Bush's 2001 tax bill.

Each year, the House Republicans vote on a repeal of the estate tax. But the Senate has never met the 60 votes needed. If the senators are able to make peace on the issue, there will probably be a final vote before the elections

The odds are low that your Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax return will actually be audited. As it is, it is virtually impossible for IRS to examine each and every tax return due to time and personnel constraints. Also, the greater your income, the more chances you have for being audited. After all, it doesn’t make financial sense for IRS to audit somebody’s tax return whose income is, say for example, $5000 per year.

Still, nobody is immune from IRS audits and the last thing you want is to spend your time and energy in your audit.

Here are some of the steps you can follow to minimize your chances of being audited.

1. Use a computer to prepare your tax return: Not only will your tax return look cleaner to read, but you will also minimize your chances of making a mistake on your return.

2. Always check your figures: Once you are done with your tax return, always make sure all the amounts that you entered in your tax return document are correct. If the amounts are not correct, it is always easier to fix the problem now than to hope that IRS won’t find out. Remember if IRS does find out, you will spend a lot of time and energy in fixing your problems.

3. Sign your return: Even though this is a no-brainer, many people simply forget to sign it. One of the most obvious reasons is that we spend a couple of days finishing and reviewing the tax return and in the end, we forget signing our own tax returns.

4. Use electronic filing: If you file your return on a hard copy, do remember there will be an IRS employee who will enter the numbers you provided in their computer system. Obviously, this is a time consuming effort. Also, the IRS employee himself can make a mistake when entering the data into the computer system. It is better to file electronically so that there is no margin for introducing errors.

5. Provide proof if you have large deductions: If you have a large deduction such as an expensive medical treatment, you can provide receipts, checks and medical bills. Large deductions can turn on the IRS audit flag and it is always good on your part to show as much proof as you can. You may use disclosure Form 8275 for this purpose.

6. Use care for business expenses : One of the biggest advantages of a business is that you can claim deductions. However, not every expense can be counted as a business expense. The laws can be complicated and it is always better to see a tax attorney for this matter.

The best step you can follow is, just be honest about your financial aspects. If you are honest, you don’t have to be afraid of anything if an IRS taxman knocks on your door

Many taxpayers don't ever consider checking to see if they fall into the AMT. In fact, many don't even know what it is.

Those that attempt to figure it out, often get confused by the calculations and simply assume that they don't owe it.

"Many taxpayers are unaware that the AMT applies to them until they receive a notice from the IRS, and some discover they have AMT liabilities that they did not anticipate and cannt pay," said Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson in a report to a congressional subcommittee last year.

While the instructions for Form 1040's line 45 (where you enter your AMT amount) require taxpayers to fill out fairly simple worksheet, the taxpayer ahs to read 16 exceptions to that worksheet that refer the taxpayer to go directly to Form 6251to figure potential AMT liability.

Many don't know where to even go for the form, as they simply picked up a 1040 and started filling it out as usual.

One of the exceptions is "interest paid on a mortgage not used to buy, build or substantially improve your home." Does this mean that home equity loan that consolidated the credit cards?

"There's no one thing that one can say for sure 'this is going to be an AMT problem," said Mark Luscombe, a principal analyst with CCH.

Many are shocked to find that they are in the AMT. After all, it was originally intended to stop the wealthy from avoiding their income taxes.

"You don't have to be making a lot of money to fall into the alt-min anymore," said Barbara Steinmetz, a certified financial planner. "Property taxes help boost you there. State income taxes help boost you there."

"If you are working through the 1040 and you go line by line, you shouldn't miss it," says the IRS.

The AMT currently traps high-income taxpayers with difficult tax situations. Most of these are aware of the issue, because they have their tax returns prepared professionally.

Without yearly patches on the AMT, millions of middle-income families could be subject to the parallel tax.

"It's like watching a horror movie and there's this slow moving creature that's about to consume the middle class," said Len Burman of the Urban Institute and the Tax Policy Center

A good tax shelter is hard to come by, but the perfect shelter may be right in front of your eyes. There are many companies which are encouraging people to spend their hard earned money on investments in tropical places where it will be kept safe and away from the IRS. Yes, this type of tax shelter is illegal and really aren't very efficient in keeping your money away from the tax man. However, most people do not realize that that the government allows us to use our homes as a way of collecting a tax deductions, credits, and benefits. These benefits were established to offset the costs of owning a house. It is said that home owners are the basis to all communities and therefore the economy as a whole.

It is the homeowner who purchases services and goods which in turn supply jobs to the people of community which eventually leads to funding state and local taxes. The deductions help keep the real estate market full of new buyers which helps the prices of houses increase over time. As the public needs more and more houses and the supply of available homes gets smaller, it causes the market price of houses to increase. This creates equity and real wealth in the house and therefore a sound investment which can be passed down from generation to generation. Owning your own home is not just the American dream it can work great as a way to store and built personal wealth.

Most of the money paid for mortgage payment goes toward interest, especially when the loan is brand new. All the interest paid on a home loan is tax deductible. Not only that but you can own up to two homes and the interest payments on both are tax deductible. This type of deduction reduces our taxable income and therefore reduces the amount of taxes we have to pay each year. Additionally any money put out for home improvements or home improvement loans can also be tax deductible. These are calculated differently then mortgage taxes. Only capital investments can be used as tax deductions. Capital investments are those which increase the value of the home. For example adding new room or another bathroom, anything that prolongs roof life, or even adapting the home for the elderly or people with disabilities.

Married couples are allows to have up to $500,000 profit from the sale of home which was the primary residence for over 5 years. This profit is tax free. Single people are allowed $250,000 profit which is also tax free. Houses are great shelters and this is one of the reasons that home based businesses are so popular and successful. When individuals use even part of their home for business purposes they are able to write off a percentage of those costs associated with whatever part of your house you are using for a business. This may include utility bills, insurance, repair cost, and depreciation