This issue contains 21 last-minute tax tips that you can use for 2010. We broke the tips into two articles: one for vehicles and one not related to vehicles. This article contains 12 last-minute tax tips that are not related to vehicles.

This issue contains 21 last-minute tax tips that you can use for 2010. We’ve broken the tips into two articles: one for vehicles and one not related to vehicles. This article contains the tips that apply to vehicles.

When the S corporation makes HSA contributions on behalf of its more than 2 percent shareholder-employee, the S corporation treats the contributions as compensation to the shareholder-employee. In turn, the shareholder-employee has a deductible HSA on his or her personal tax return.

You learn valuable business and documentation strategies from IRS audit manuals. We spend time reading these. In this article, we reviewed the IRS audit manual on self-employed lawyers and carved out selected business and documentation strategies you can use to audit-proof your deductible business entertainment.

When the bank forecloses on a home, tax law comes into play in some surprising and often beneficial ways, especially this year. Tax law treats recourse and nonrecourse mortgages in completely different ways, but with a personal residence, the end result can be pretty much the same.

If you are personally liable for a debt and that debt is canceled or forgiven, you include the canceled debt as taxable income on your income tax return. Your situation dictates whether you will pay taxes on this taxable income. You might qualify to exclude the canceled-debt income from taxation altogether or to pay little or no taxes on it this year and then pay taxes in later years.

Even if you are not required to file a tax return, you need to file a return within the statute of limitations if you are due a refund and you want the cash. If you fail to file a return within the statute of limitations, you forfeit your refund and make a contribution of that refund to the government.