You call it making your money work for you. The Internal Revenue Service calls it unearned income. Regardless of the name, the tax collector wants to know how much you make each year on earnings from your savings accounts, stocks and bonds, certificates of deposit or mutual funds.

Just how you report your investment income, however, depends largely on how much you made. For many taxpayers, the process is relatively simple and requires no additional tax forms. Those who pocketed a bit more from their investments will have to give the IRS details via extra forms.

And every investor who benefits from the lower capital gains and dividend tax rates will have to pay for their tax savings by running extra computations to figure out their precise IRS bill.

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