Hello out there!

My husband was laid off early this year (in Jan), and as such our income will be significantly lower than in years past, as well as much lower than we expect it to be next year, when hopefully, construction will pick back up here in NC.

So, my question is, for tax year 2009, would it make any sense, and is it even possible, to delay our property tax payment until after the new year, and then claim it on our 2010 return? (this would be in addition to our 2010 prop taxes)

*our 2009 tax bill is $2682 due by 1/5/2010

*our AGI for 2009 will be around $26,000

*our AGI for 2008 was $52,000 (and hopefully will be for 2010)

Links to other areas / pages that discuss this topic would be helpful too. Thanks so much!!

I am not an expert and the fastest/most accurate way of answering this question is to call your county assessor and find out whether you can delay paying your property taxes or have some other payment schedule. Most likely the answer is no. What little I've heard is you can even get your house repossessed if you do not pay these taxes. I would find another way of cutting your expenses.

I guess there are circumstances you can defer payment, but still have to pay interest on the deferral. Here is a link, haven't verified info, but seems a place to start.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5747128_defer-p ... taxes.html

It can make sense to control when you pay property taxes.

Not sure what you decided to do so will give you some things to think about in the future.

You deduct taxes, medical bills, etc in the year you PAID them. Not when they were billed but when you pay them. Since your bill is due in Jan/2010 you can pay it early in December 2009 and count it on your 2009 taxes. Without knowing all your other circumstances, this year you can deduct property taxes on your taxes without itemizing. If you itemize, you can deduct them as normal.

You can do a rough calculation using last years software to determine how much of an impact it will have. Or you can do it on paper depending on how difficult your taxes are. I usually advise doing it both ways to see the impact. With the software it won't be perfect but will give you an idea of the impact.

Taxes are unique for each situation. The impact to the bottom line depends on too many things to try to answer in a forum.

Hope that helps make the decision next time.

The short answer is yes, you can delay paying your taxes (to a point) BUT, you'll pay a late fee/penalty. I'd try to pay it ontime to avoid a bigger expense and then budget (whatever your taxes are divided by 12) so you dont have to worry about having that money for next year. This is how I prepare to pay all my fixed large bills.

Hope this helps.

Rebecca