02/07/2023
Claim Your Nebraska Property Tax Credit
Regardless of your income tax situation, if you pay property taxes in Nebraska, you are eligible for a refundable income tax credit. For tax year 2022, the credit equals 30% of property taxes paid and received by the county treasurer to schools and community colleges in the calendar year.
To claim your credit, you must file Form PTC and submit it with your traditional Nebraska income tax return. If you did not claim the credit from 2020 or 2021, you can file Form PTCx to claim those past years.
What does this mean to property owners?
Each taxpayer’s credit varies based on the assessed value of the parcel and the school district in which the tax is levied. According to the Nebraska Farm Bureau,
- A standard $250,000 home in Nebraska, owing $5,000 in property taxes, is eligible for over $1,000 in total tax credits – a 20% reduction
- The Average Nebraska Farm, owing $29,000 in property taxes, is eligible for over $8,000 in total tax credits – a 28% reduction!
The Nebraska Department of Revenue website has a Property Tax Look-up Tool to help calculate the credit you are due.
Here is a video from the Nebraska Department of Revenue on how the program works, and how to complete the necessary tax forms.
We don’t want you to miss out on the opportunity to receive this credit on your Nebraska taxes. In many cases, your tax preparer will be aware of the credit and may be planning to gather the information. However, if you use a national service (i.e., H&R Block or Turbo Tax) they may not know the credit is available, or the process to claim it on their software may not be user-friendly. The best way to ensure you get credit for each parcel you own is to provide the completed form PTC to your tax preparer or at a minimum, provide a parcel ID for each parcel you own.
Additional information can be found on the Nebraska Department of Revenue website.
the markets-
returns through 02/03/23
The growth and tech-heavy NASDAQ led large cap domestic markets this week, returning +3.33%, while blue chips, as represented by the DJ Industrial Average, returned -0.15%. Small cap stocks were the strongest performer with the Russell 2000 index returning +3.90%. International stocks generally underperformed domestic stocks, with the MSCI EAFE returning +0.46% and the MSCI Emerging Markets losing ground, falling -1.18%, respectively. International bonds outpaced domestic bonds in a fairly benign environment, with the Global Aggregate Bond Index returning +0.18% to the US Aggregate Bond Index’s +0.03%. US Corporate High Yield managed much better, returning +1.00% on the week.
Amazon Unprofitable: After a long run of surging profits from pandemic-era shopping sprees, Amazon is feeling the hangover. The retail and tech giant is reporting its first unprofitable year since 2014. Amazon lost $2.7 billion last year, the company said on Thursday. This was despite holiday-season sales growing 9%. Amazon's shares fell in after-hours trading. By far, the biggest culprit for Amazon's losses over the year was the company's hefty investment in the electric automaker Rivian whose value plummeted last year and ate into Amazon's bottom line.
If A Groundhog Sees Its Shadow: Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania’s most famous groundhog, emerged from his Gobblers Knob burrow on February 2nd to see his shadow. And while the old folklore says if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter (which is quite a drag), a more fun question is what it means for markets. A research paper written by Savva Shanaev and Arina Shuraeva of the U.K.’s University of Northumbria and Svetlana Fedorova of the Financial Research Institute of the Russia Ministry of Finance finds there is a “distinct calendar anomaly on the U.S. stock market associated with the Groundhog Day prognostication tradition across 1928 to 2021.” The paper finds “there are significant positive abnormal returns around the ‘prediction’ of an early spring while buy-and-hold returns around the ‘prediction’ of a long winter are 2.78% lower.” Here’s hoping the groundhog theory reverses this year.
How Cold Was It?: One might have felt like they were on a polar expedition this past weekend in the Northeast as arctic air that descended on Saturday brought dangerously cold sub-zero temperatures and wind chills to the region, including a record-setting wind chill of minus 108 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 78 C) on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The Mount Washington Observatory at the peak of the Northeast’s highest mountain, famous for its extreme weather conditions, also recorded an actual temperature of minus 47 (minus 44 C), tying an observatory record set in 1934 and a wind gust of 127 mph (204 kmh).
Index performance does not reflect the deduction of any fees and expenses, and if deducted, performance would be reduced. Indexes are unmanaged and investors are not able to invest directly into any index. Past performance cannot guarantee future results.
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