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Many people think of Apple Valley strictly as a lake community for summer fun during the warm weather months but Apple Valley has activities year round. The following is a schedule of events for the month of January 2009.
The Apple Valley lake community in Knox County Ohio has more than 6,600 developed lots and home sites. Many of the Apple Valley property owners live outside of the Apple Valley lake community yet they want to stay connected to what is happening in Apple Valley. Beyond the Cider Press Publication or our Apple Valley Blog there is a new online option for Apple Valley Property Owners called Twitter.
Twitter is a new website technology that allows people to connect with each other using a quick and easy format. Twitter has been referred to as a micro blog that allows only 140 characters or less per message. To give you an idea how small 140 characters is let me say that it is smaller than a single cell phone text message. Keeping the Twitter content brief makes it even powerful because it can be accessed via computer, cell phone, text messaging, iPod Touch or most other wireless devices. The Twitter technology even allows us to post website links to photo updates, current weather and many other information that an out of town property owner would find useful.
If you are already a Twitter user and you would like to stay updated you are welcome to follow me on Twitter by clicking the following link and selecting "follow": http://www.Twitter.com/sammillersells. For those who are interested in setting up a free Twitter account just visit www.Twitter.com and it is very simple. Once you have your account setup be sure to visit: http://www.Twitter.com/sammillersells
Sally Nelson and her team of tax specialists at Nelson & Nelson provided me with some very valuable tax updates today. I was very excited to see that these updates apply directly to real estate and home ownership. I contacted Nelson & Nelson CPA's and asked their permission to share their tax update with you in my blog and they happily agreed.
Year End Tax Update
Before year end we want to expand on our discussion of the new homebuyer tax credit provision that we touched on in a previous letter. It is a new and untried concept, so there will probably be unforeseen situations that will need to be worked out as they arise, but for now - this is what is known!
First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
The important thing to remember about this interesting provision, is that it is really a government loan that taxpayers can use to finance a home purchase. There are many stipulations:
1) The definition of "first-time" is that the taxpayers did not own a residence during the 3 year period before the purchase.
2) Residence means principal residence - not a vacation or second home.
3) The benefit is phased out at certain modified adjusted gross income levels
Single taxpayers $75,000-$95,000
Married taxpayers, filing joint $150,000-$170,000
4) So far this only applies to houses purchased after 4/9/08 and closed before 7/1/09, however a house bought in the 2009 period can be claimed on a 2008 extended or amended return, to accelerate the receipt of cash.
5) The credit is limited to the lower of $7,500 ($3,750, for married filing separate) or ten percent of the purchase price (e.g. a $60,000 house would result in a credit of $6,000)
The way it would work is that taxpayers would claim the credit on the tax return for the year of purchase. It would first be applied to any tax on the return. Any extra, not needed to pay tax, would be refunded. If the taxpayer had other credits and withholdings to pay his/her tax, all the credit would go into the refund. This credit-loan would have to be paid back, over a 15 year period starting the 2nd year after the credit was taken. It would get paid back as an addition to the taxes owed for those 15 years. The good thing is that it is interest free. As an example, if $7,500 were taken in 2008, an additional $500 would get added to the tax bills for 2010-2024.
So, what happens if....
The taxpayer dies? Payback ceases, the surviving spouse owes just ½ the balance.
The taxpayers get divorced? Payback is the responsibility of the spouse receiving the home.
The house is sold? Payback is completed in year of sale, however the payback cannot be more than the gain on the house.
The house is bought from a close relative? The credit does not apply.
This could be a very advantageous benefit for qualifying taxpayers.
Going Green doesn't have to be difficult and it doesn't have to be expensive. With just a little added planning and by making some very small changes we can make a difference. I will keep the "Going Green" ideas coming each week. It is amazing that once I have started thinking about trying to live a little greener how you start noticing things that never stood out before. Here are 5 tips you can easily use in the coming week.
Displaying blog entries 1-4 of 4
