What Is a Tax Return? A tax return is a form or forms filed with a tax authority that reports income, expenses, and other pertinent tax information. Tax returns allow taxpayers to calculate their tax liability, schedule tax payments, or request refunds for the overpayment of taxes. In most countries, tax returns must be filed
What Is a Tax Sale? A tax sale is the sale of a real estate property that results when a taxpayer reaches a certain point of delinquency in their owed property tax payments. Key Takeaways A tax sale is the sale of a piece of real estate due to unpaid property taxes.There are two types
What Is a Tax Service Fee? A tax service fee is a legitimate closing cost that is assessed and collected by a lender to ensure that mortgagors pay their property taxes on time. Tax service fees exist because lenders want to protect their access to collateral if a borrower defaults. Key Takeaways Tax service fees
What Is a Tax Shelter? A tax shelter is a vehicle used by individuals or organizations to minimize or decrease their taxable incomes and, therefore, tax liabilities. Tax shelters are legal, and can range from investments or investment accounts that provide favorable tax treatment, to activities or transactions that lower taxable income through deductions or
What Is a Tax Table? The term tax table refers to a chart that displays the amount of tax due based on income received. Tax tables are provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to help taxpayers determine how much tax they owe and how to calculate it when they file their annual tax returns.
What Is a Tax Treaty? A tax treaty is a bilateral (two-party) agreement made by two countries to resolve issues involving double taxation of passive and active income of each of their respective citizens. Income tax treaties generally determine the amount of tax that a country can apply to a taxpayer’s income, capital, estate, or
What Is the Taylor Rule? The Taylor Rule (sometimes referred to as Taylor’s rule or Taylor principle) is an equation linking the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate to levels of inflation and economic growth. Stanford economist John Taylor originally proposed the rule as a rough guideline for monetary policy but has subsequently urged a fixed-rule
What Is a T-Distribution? The t-distribution, also known as the Student’s t-distribution, is a type of probability distribution that is similar to the normal distribution with its bell shape but has heavier tails. It is used for estimating population parameters for small sample sizes or unknown variances. T-distributions have a greater chance for extreme values
What Is a Tear Sheet? The term tear sheet can have different meanings depending on the industry. In finance, a tear sheet is a single-paged document that is used to summarize key information about individual companies or funds. The term “tear sheet” dates back to earlier days when brokers would literally rip a page out
What Is Tax Efficiency? Tax efficiency is when an individual or business pays the least amount of taxes required by law. A financial decision is said to be tax-efficient if the tax outcome is lower than an alternative financial structure that achieves the same end. Key Takeaways Tax efficiency is when an individual or business
