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STRATEGIC ISSUES...ONLINE
For week
of June 1, 2006, Issue #264
Featured Articles:
1. Marriage Calls for a Tax
Review
2. Tech Tip Weekly: Distasteful
Cookies
3. Compliance Calendar
If you would like to have
further information on any of these articles, let us know. We
would appreciate receiving your comments and/or suggestions, anytime!
acarroll@pmcpa.com
acarroll@pmcpa.com
1. Marriage Calls for a Tax Review
Are wedding bells in your future this summer? If
so, add tax updates to the long list of things to do. It's not very exciting,
but you should at least take care of some paperwork to keep your tax situation
in order.
The good news is that your overall tax burden may
not change a lot. Until a few years ago, you were likely to suffer a marriage
penalty if you both worked. That meant that you paid more taxes as a married
couple than your combined taxes as singles. Congress has now largely removed
the penalty, at least for low and middle-income earners. Now you're not
likely to feel a penalty until your combined income exceeds about $124,000.
This varies with your personal circumstances though. You might want to check
with your tax adviser and see whether you need to adjust your payroll
withholding.
You should also do some other things to adjust
your taxes and finances to your new married status.
-Notify the Social Security administration if you
change your name.
-Notify the IRS of your address change if you move
to a new home. This ensures that any correspondence about previous returns or
refunds will find you.
-File new Forms W-4 at work to reflect your
married status.
-Review your combined contributions to 401(k)
plans to make sure you're maximizing your company's matching contribution.
-Don't overlook estate tax planning. Draw up a
new estate plan with wills, powers-of-attorney, health care directives, etc.
2. Tech Tip Weekly - Distasteful
Cookies
A Web site can
attempt to access a cookie that is associated with another Web site
(one Web site is not supposed to be able to access any cookies except
for those it left there earlier). If you use Yahoo! or Google e-mail and you
configure that mail to automatically log you in, having your cookie might be
enough for a hacker to log into your e-mail too. Whoever does this can send
mail from your account, receive your e-mail, and view all your stored e-mail.
That includes e-mails with your résumés attached, notes to and from your
friends, and forgotten passwords that your financial services Web sites sent
you. And that is only the tip of the iceberg!
At the very least, a hacker can use a hijacked cookie to track what Web sites you've visited and when. Much of what's going on with spyware is about advertising, and knowing what sites you're visiting is quite valuable to advertisers.
Moral of the story: Be very selective and careful for what you want your computer to remember for you, because when you do you are leaving (milk and) cookies, but not for Santa!
3. Compliance Calendar
June 9
-Employers deposit Social Security, Medicare and
withheld income tax for June 3, 4, 5, and 6.
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