The 1040 tax Form must be your first step for your personal IRS income tax returns. It is created to help out in calculating the total of tax you should pay on the amount of income you have reported.
By using this form regularly as your income changes, you’ll be more aware of whether you need to take steps to reduce your potential tax penalty or you might actually calculate that you’ll receive a return.
This is the ‘long form’ or the more complete version and should be used if you have complicated tax issues to calculate. Things like investment income or loss, capital gain or loss or multiple itemized deductions should be entered individually on your 1040 tax form to help you gain a more accurate idea of the amount of tax you should be paying or withholding.
Although the form could be only 2 main pages, they have 11 different attachments or schedules that follow with it. Each different schedule covers a specific aspect of your tax return, so that you may not need all.
1040A tax form
The 1040A Tax Form is the form that helps you to estimate tax return for the financial year. If you have no complicated tax additions for the year, like capital gains or individual itemized deductions, then the short form will be ideal for you.
1040EZ Tax Form
The 1040EZ tax form is an even more simplified version of the more lengthy 1040 form and is still able to help you determine what your tax bill might amount to at the end of the year very quickly. Once again, this is ideal for those people with no uncomplicated tax issues to account for.
1040NR tax form
The 1040NR tax form designed to facilitate non-resident aliens to calculate the total of IRS tax return. For non-resident alien who has been in the United States for less than five years and has an income on which tax must be paid has to use this form.
This form shows the IRS the original figures you submitted and then highlights what those figures should have been according to your calculations. In some cases the irs help can help you to increase the amount of tax refund you were due or it might even reduce a pending tax penalty you might incur.
