Texas Tax News & Headlines
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs is offering homeowner assistance through the state’s homeowner assistance fund to help eligible homeowners with past due mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance, and delinquent homeowner association and condo association fees. (Courtesy Fotolia)
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs is offering homeowner assistance through the state’s homeowner assistance fund to help eligible homeowners with past due mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance, and delinquent homeowner association and condo association fees, according to Kristina Tirloni, senior communications adviser for the TDHCA.
Tirloni said the Texas homeowner assistance fund is money that was allocated to the state through the federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act in response to the pandemic. The fund has $840 million available and will offer assistance until the funds run out or until December 31, 2026, when the funds must be expended.
In a news release March 15, officials in Montgomery County notified residents of the new program to help homeowners with delinquent payments due to the pandemic to avoid foreclosure.
“If you need assistance and need to get help as soon as possible, we encourage you to apply,” Tirloni said in an interview.
As of a March 23 interview, Tirloni said the funds for property taxes and insurance are coming through more quickly than mortgage payments, which are taking 30 days or more to be applied to delinquent accounts. The funds are a grant and do not need to be repaid, according to a March 15 news release from Montgomery County.
“Homeowners that have delinquent taxes can apply to the program, and if they qualify, TDHCA will send a check for the delinquent taxes to my office to avoid foreclosure,” said Tammy McRae, Montgomery County tax assessor-collector, in the March 15 news release. “The payment is a grant, not a loan. I encourage all homeowners to apply who qualify and have delinquent taxes."
Eligibility requirements can be found on the TDHCA website and include owning and occupying a home in Texas and experiencing a financial hardship due to the pandemic.
Applications are only available online, but there is a toll-free number, 833-651-3874, to call for assistance applying or to answer questions
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Trade Your Crypto. Buy Your NFTs. And Pay Your Taxes!
Adam McCauley
David Yaffe-Bellany and March 26, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ETThe Internal Revenue Service may run on ancient technology, but that isn’t stopping it from taking its cut from your newfangled cryptocurrency winnings.
In case you didn’t notice last year — or pretended not to — the I.R.S. moved the question about whether you sold, exchanged or “otherwise” disposed of any financial interest in virtual currency. It’s now high up on the 1040 form — above even where you list your wages.
How serious is the government getting about crypto? This month, President Biden signed an executive order that raised the possibility of a central bank digital currency. And the next day — perhaps driving home the point about the tax implications of all this — the I.R.S. announced that two owners of a cryptocurrency company were going to prison for a combined eight years for tax evasion.
“Crypto actors,” a Texas federal prosecutor said, “are required to pay their fair share of taxes, just like everyone else.”
That can be complicated if you jumped in with both feet. Are you befuddled by the ramifications of your first gain or loss? Or maybe confused about how exchanging one crypto asset for another creates a taxable event?
Fortunately, service providers are starting to show up to help crypto enthusiasts with the software equivalent of picks and shovels.
CoinLedger is one of them. It offers a specialized tool that can help track what you paid for digital assets and figure out any tax liability. We asked its chief executive, David Kemmerer, about the tax illusions (and delusions) that crypto investors have as they navigate this process.
This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
In what circumstances would you have to pay taxes on your cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is treated very similarly to stocks or equities from a tax perspective, in that capital gains apply when you dispose of cryptocurrency. If I bought that Bitcoin for 100 bucks and then sold it later for 1,000, that $900 capital gain is income that needs to be reported on my taxes.
If you’re earning cryptocurrency from a job — and people actually get paid in crypto nowadays — that is taxable income, at the fair market value at the time you received it. Let’s say I did a job for someone and they paid me one Bitcoin right on Feb. 23. Well, on Feb. 23, I’m incurring $40,000 of income. Or whatever the fair market value of Bitcoin was at the time that I received it for my services.
Why did your software need to exist?
The problem that’s unique to cryptocurrencies that does not exist for equities is this data is fragmented across multiple different platforms. Let’s say I’m using E-Trade to buy and sell Tesla stock. Everything happens on E-Trade. It’s not normal for any trading person to send their Tesla stock somewhere else.
That’s just not the case for crypto. All of a user’s transactions can take place across multiple different wallets and across multiple different third parties.
The software exists to kind of be the TurboTax for cryptocurrency investors. We integrate with all of the various platforms of the crypto economy. All that data gets fully normalized, and then it gets routed through our tax engines. Then we can generate with the click of a button necessary capital gains, capital losses and income reports.
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What Drivers in Texas are Paying in Gas Taxes
Gas prices are hovering near all-time highs in the United States. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $4.24 as of March 23 - up 70 cents from a month ago.
What Americans pay at the pump is subject to a number of factors - the most important of which is the price of crude oil, which is determined by global supply and demand. As major markets around the world have banned Russian oil imports amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, the global energy market has tightened considerably, sending gas prices to record highs.
While shocks to the global energy market are largely out of the control of U.S. policymakers, other factors affecting gas prices are not, namely taxes. The federal government levies a tax of 18.4 cents on every gallon of gas sold to American motorists.
On top of the federal gas tax, as of January 2022, Texas levied an additional tax of 20.0 cents per gallon - the sixth lowest gas tax among states. Currently, the average price of a gallon of gas in Texas stands at $3.90. Including the federal tax, taxes account for 9.9% of the average price of a gallon of gas in the state.
Gas taxes are typically used to fund road and highway repair projects to fix damage caused by usage and wear. In Texas, vehicle miles traveled per year total about 14,510 per driver, the 15th most among states.
Not only are taxes adding to the pain Americans are feeling at the pump, but the revenue they generate has failed to keep up with infrastructure maintenance costs and inflation. While many states are adjusting tax rates to address the shortfall, the federal gas tax has not changed since 1993.
All data on gas taxes are current as of Jan. 1, 2022 and are from the American Petroleum Institute. Data on the average price of a gallon of regular gas are for March 23, 2022 and are from AAA. Annual vehicle miles traveled per driver was calculated using data from the Federal Highway Administration.
Click Here For The Original Article And State List of Gas Prices
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