Archive for February, 2007

some sweet tax credits

Monday, February 26th, 2007

While doing my taxes I discovered these bad boys. you probably would’ve on your own as well, but, just in case, i didn’t want you to miss out. cause they’re pretty awesome:

 

1. IRA contribution tax credit.

You can get up to 50% back of your IRA deposits for 2006! Holy crap! To see how much you get back, find where your income matches up w your married status in the table below. Also, only you can only get credit for $2000 of your contributions. So, I made $20,000 last year, and am single, so I get back 10%. And I contributed $3000, but only $2000 of that counts, so I get back $200. So that’s not bad, but if you’re single and made less than $15,000, and contributed $2000, holy crap!, you get 50%/$1000 back!

 

And remember, you can still contribute to your IRA for 2006 until March 31, 2007.

Also, remember that anyone earning a low enough income to qualify for this should be investing in a Roth IRA rather than a traditional.

 

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More details from investopedia:

This non-refundable tax credit is allowed in addition to any deduction you may receive for your IRA contribution. For more information on this nonrefundable tax credit, see The Saver’s Tax Credit: an Added Incentive to Fund a Retirement Account. In order to claim the non-refundable tax credit, you must file IRS Form 8880, the most current version of which is available at www.irs.gov.

 

2. Telephone tax credit.

It was ruled that an old long distance tax wasn’t legit, so the IRS is giving a refund. You were probably charged the tax and so are eligible for the refund if you had a cell phone, or were ever charged for long-distance on a landline, between February 28, 2003 and August 1, 2006. You can take a standard refund of $30 or $60, depending on your situation (most will be $30–I was); or you can try to itemize that shit, gathering up old bills etc. I highly recommend the standard unless you’ve got weird circumstances.

 

More info: Telephone Tax Refund Q&A page.

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Virginia taxes

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

Was recently doing my Virginia tax return on H&R Block’s TaxCut and got this question:

“Amount to Prevent Deduction of Certain Items: Report the amount necessary to prevent the deduction of any item properly deductible by the taxpayer in determining a tax under prior state law.”

What the heck is that supposed to mean? I just said $0. But I sure hope that’s correct cause I have no idea.

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Steps for speeding up your slow-ass computer

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007

1. Cut down on the number of programs that automatically load when your computer starts up. 

 

When you install new programs many of them will then automatically load fully or in part each time your computer starts up.    You may not realize this because there may only be an indicator in the taskbar, or often there’s not even that, but they can take up a good chunk of your computer’s memory.

 

(I know this isn’t the simplest process, but it was by far the most effective for me so that’s why it’s #1)

  1. Start–>Run
  2. Type msconfig
  3. Go to the startup tab
  4. Uncheck those items you don’t want to startup.   Some of the items will be easily identifiable.  Others not so much.  If in doubt, leave it out (and by that I mean don’t uncheck it).  Here are the ones I unchecked, so they are all safe to check without any concern about your computer having a meltdown, figuratively, psychologically, or physically.
  • groovemonitor
  • hkcmd
  • igfxpers
  • igxtray
  • ISUSPM
  • ituneshelper
  • msmsgs
  • qttask
  • riyatray
  • RxMon
  • DrgToDsc
  • EngUtil
  • jusched
  • GoogleToolbarNotifier
  • realsched
  • iTouch
  • Adobe Gamme
  • Adobe Reader Speed Launch
  • Adobe Reader Synchronizer
  • Run Google Web Accelerator
  1. Now hit ok
  2. Restart your computer when it’s convenient.
  3. Upon start-up, you’ll get a message saying something to the effect of "you modified the system config utility…blah blah, andy is cool"; check the box to not show this msg in the future
  4. go about your business.  is your computer faster?  does it start-up faster? 

2. Defrag your hard drive periodically.

How often you should defrag will vary by how much software you install and how often you move around large amounts of files, but the average person should defrag at least once every 6 months.

 

To defrag:

  1. Make sure you have at least 15% space free on the drive you want to defrag (generally drive C is the only one that’ll need it)
  2. Right click on the drive you want to defrag, and select properties. 
  3. Go to the Tools tab and select Matt Wixon; j/k, select Defragment Now
  4. Hit the Defragment button.

 

Tips on the down-low

This can take a while and use up a lot of system resources so you’ll probably want to run it overnight.

 

3. Run CCleaner

Stands for crap cleaner–this program deletes files temporary files you no longer need.  This speeds up your computer some, but mostly frees up hard drive space.  You should run this periodically as well.  I run every couple months and it usually frees up 4 GB.  But I’m more of your extreme-mountain-dew user.  The avg user can run every 6 months or so.

 

  1. download at ccleaner.com, install, run
  2. you’ll see two tabs listing various selections to clean.  I suggest just going with the defaults, except I uncheck my windows–>internet explorer browsing history, and applications–>firefox browsing history (same for opera if you use that as a browser)
  3. run that jonx

4. More

It is also highly recommended you have anti-virus and anti-spyware programs and run full system scans periodically.  Viruses and spyware can also definitely slow down your computer (and worse).

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