The IRS is a very big place, and trying to get answers to your tax questions can be a daunting task. But if you know who to call at the Internal Revenue Service, you can get expert tax advice and answers to your tax questions via live telephone assistance.

Here is a list of IRS phone numbers and/or websites to get expert tax advice and/or answers to your tax questions:

For tax help and answers to tax questions for Individuals, call toll-free 1-800-829-1040, Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. your local time.

For phone assistance with tax questions for Businesses, call toll-free 1-800-4933, Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

To get answers to tax questions for Exempt Organizations, Retirement Plan Administrators and Government Entities, call toll-free 1-877-829-5500, Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Central Time.

For tax assistance for Individuals who believe they may be a victim of Identify Theft, call 1-800-908-4490 (Automated and live assistance) 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 pm. your local time.

There’s live telephone assistance available to people who live outside the United States, too! The phone numbers for tax help is available at http://www.irs.gov/localcontacts/article/0,,id=101292,00.html

The IRS even offers face-to-face tax assistance in certain areas. They also have local offices you may visit to get tax assistance.

Finally, the IRS offers Taxpayer Assistance Centers at locations throughout the country. The IRS will extend hours of service at selected locations from January 31 through April 9.

As a taxpayer you have a right to get expert tax advice and answers to your tax questions directly from the source – the Internal Revenue Service.

source: irs.gov

You may see changes in your take-home pay in 2011 due to the enactment of the Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2010 on December 17, 2010. The Tax Relief act extended for two years the income tax rates that were scheduled to expire at the end of 2010; that extension prevented a large increase in federal income tax withholding.

However, the new law did not extend the Making Work Pay (MWP) credit that had been available for tax years 2009 and 2010. While most workers qualified for the maximum MWP credit, pension recipients did not qualify for any MWP credit unless they also had wages or other earned income.

In December 2010, the IRS published new federal income tax withholding information to reflect the impact of the Tax Relief Act. The fact that the MWP credit expired, by itself, would have resulted in increased withholding for most taxpayers. However, under the Tax Relief Act, withholding for social security tax for all wage earners was reduced from 6.2% to 4.2% (withholding for Medicare, at 1.45%, did not change). For most employees, the net effect of these two changes will result in less total tax being withheld from their checks. The social security tax reduction does not affect pension payments.

Due to the late enactment of these tax law changes, the IRS asked employers and plan administrators to adjust their systems as soon as possible but not later than January 31, 2011. This means employees and pension recipients may not have seen the full impact of these changes until their first paycheck in February, 2011.

Once employers implement the changes, there will be a net increase in take-home pay for most employees (excluding the impact of any other withholding amounts, such as withholding for health insurance, state income taxes, etc.).

Once pension plan administrators implement the 2011 changes, the retirement check payments for some pensioners may be lower depending upon the method that their plan administrators used to calculate withholding in 2010. Because the MWP credit did not apply to pensioners, the IRS published a table for 2009 and 2010 giving plan administrators the option of increasing withholding for their pension recipients. Not all plan administrators made the optional adjustment and instead allowed pensioners to make the adjustment when they filed their tax returns. Since the 2011 withholding tables do not reflect the expired credit, pension recipients in this situation are likely to see the withholding for their 2011 pension payments increase by approximately $7 to $50 per payment, depending on filing status, the amount of the payment, and how often the payment is made.

IRS encourages both employees and pensioners to review their withholding every year using the withholding calculator on IRS.gov and, if necessary, fill out a new W-4 or W-4P form and give it to their employer or pension plan administrator.

Taxpayers should be aware that the Tax Relief Act may affect the amount of your tax-home pay in 2011.

For additional information on the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010, or for IRS tax help, visit the IRS website.

source: irs.gov

Did you know the IRS offers tax help to small business owners through its Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center? The tax center offers extensive resources and online tools to small businesses and the self-employed.

The IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center offers tax help resources:

• Small business forms and publications
• Employer Identification Number online application
• Employment tax information – federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare taxes, FUTA and self-employment tax
• Tax-related news that could affect your business
• Small business educational events
• IRS videos for small businesses
• A-Z Index for Business – find information fast using the A-Z listing

The site provides tax tips and important information available for all stages of owning a business. Whether you’re starting, operating, or closing a business, visit the site for federal income tax help

Other tax tips and resources available on the IRS small business website include a virtual small business tax workshop, video and audio presentations, a guide to IRS audits, and a tax calendar designed for small business taxpayers.

The IRS Video Portal:
Tax Questions? Learn about tax topics through video and audio presentations on the IRS Video Portal. The video portal contains archived versions of live panel discussions, archived webinars, video clips, and audio archives of national phone forums.

IRS Audits Video Series:
“Your Guide to an IRS Audit” takes the viewer through the steps of an audit from notification to closing. The video series is composed of scenarios that demonstrate the stages of each type of audit: correspondence, office and field. The scenarios address issues that are common to audits of small businesses.

Virtual Small Business Tax Workshop:
The IRS Virtual Small Business Tax Workshop is an interactive resource to help small business owners learn about their federal tax rights and responsibilities. The workshop contains nine stand-alone lessons that can be selected and viewed in any sequence. The workshop is available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week from any computer. It can also be ordered on CD.

Tax Calendar for Small Business Taxpayers:
The Tax Calendar for Small Businesses and Self-Employed – Publication 1518 – is available online or as a printable PDF file. This 12-month calendar is filled with information on general business taxes, IRS and Social Security Administration customer assistance, electronic filing and paying options, retirement plans, business publications and forms, and common tax filing dates. Each page highlights different tax issues and tips that may be relevant to small-business owners, with room on each month to add notes, state tax dates or business appointments. You can also download the tax events into your calendar or subscribe to the tax calendar events. The calendar provides the small business owner with a ready resource for meeting their tax obligations.

Small business owners and the self-employed should take advantage of the tax tips and tax help provided by the IRS small business website.

Source: irs.gov