Blog Archive: March 2009

Welcome to Ilyce Glink's blog! Here you'll find Ilyce's latest insights on personal finance advice, real estate advice and consumer issues. Come back often for timely and interesting posts on a wide variety of topics.

Multimedia IRS.gov Web Site Sees 24 Percent Increase In Visitors

Added March 31, 2009 by Melanie G. Rogers

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service reported today that traffic to IRS.gov has increased by more than 24 percent since last year.

More than 138 million taxpayers have visited IRS.gov this year, up from 111 million for the same time period in 2008.

IRS encourages taxpayers to visit the site to obtain…

Topics: taxes

Home Prices Decline 19 Percent In January

Added March 31, 2009 by Melanie G. Rogers

Existing home prices for 20 cities fell 19 percent in January compared with a year earlier, according to the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index released today.

Fourteen of the the 20 localities showed declines greater than 10 percent in home prices. Nine of them declined by more than 20 percent.

The…

Topics: housing market

Personal Finance Confuses Many Americans

Added March 31, 2009 by Melanie G. Rogers

The Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy recently conducted a survey about personal finance and economic issues. They released the results today and emphasized that Americans need more financial literacy education.

Some of the results include:

  • 53 percent don't know what the Dow Jones…

Topics: credit score

Tax Deduction For Buying A New Car

Added March 31, 2009 by Melanie G. Rogers

The deadline for filing 2008 taxes is fast approaching. Just about two weeks away!

It's never too early to start planning for the next year's taxes. So consider this for 2009.

If you buy a new car, costing up to $49,500, this year you can deduct the state sales and excise taxes from your 2009 taxes.

As…

Topics: taxes