The following is a summary of the most important tax developments that have occurred in the past three months that may affect you, your family, your investments, and your livelihood. (more…)

Year-end tax planning could be especially productive this year because timely action could nail down a host of tax breaks that won’t be around next year unless Congress acts to extend them, which, at the present time, looks doubtful.  For businesses, tax breaks that are available through the end of this year but won’t be around next year unless Congress acts include:  50% bonus first-year depreciation for most new machinery, equipment and software; an extraordinarily high $500,000 expensing limitation; the research tax credit; and the 15-year write-off for qualified leasehold improvements, qualified restaurant buildings and improvements and qualified retail improvements. (more…)

Year-end tax planning could be especially productive this year because timely action could nail down a host of tax breaks that won’t be around next year unless Congress acts to extend them, which, at the present time, looks doubtful.  These include, for individuals: the option to deduct state and local sales and use taxes instead of state and local income taxes; the above-the-line deduction for qualified higher education expenses; and tax-free distributions by those age 70- 1/2 or older from IRAs for charitable purposes. (more…)

The following is a summary of some of the important tax developments that have occurred in the past three months that may affect you, your family, your investments, and your livelihood (more…)

The recently enacted 2012 American Taxpayer Relief Act is a sweeping tax package that includes, among many other items, permanent extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for most taxpayers, revised tax rates on ordinary and capital gain income for high-income individuals, modification of the estate tax, permanent relief from the AMT for individual taxpayers, limits on the deductions and exemptions of high-income individuals, and a host of retroactively resuscitated and extended tax breaks for individuals and businesses.  Here’s a look at the key elements of the package (more…)

In recent years, end-of-the-year tax planning for businesses has been complicated by uncertainty over the future availability of many tax incentives.  This year is no different.   In 2010, Congress extended many business tax incentives for one or two years.  Now, those incentives have expired or are scheduled to expire. (more…)

2012 began with great uncertainty over federal tax policy and now, with the end of the year approaching, that uncertainty appears to be far from any long-term resolution.  A host of reduced tax rates, credits, deductions, and other incentives (collectively called the “Bush-era” tax cuts) are scheduled to expire after December 31, 2012.  To further complicate planning, over 50 tax extenders are up for renewal, either having expired at the end of 2011 or scheduled to expire after 2012. (more…)

The health care reform package (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) imposes a new 3.8 percent Medicare contribution tax on the investment income of higher-income individuals. Although the tax does not take effect until 2013, it is not too soon to examine methods to lessen the impact of the tax. (more…)

On February 23, 2012, the Internal Revenue Service released a revised Form 941 enabling employers to properly report the newly-extended payroll tax cut benefitting nearly 160 million workers. (more…)

On January 9, 2012, the IRS announced the reopening of its Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) for taxpayers to disclose their previously unreported foreign financial accounts and assets.  The announcement comes on the heels of the IRS revealing they have collected more than $4.4 billion from the two previous disclosure programs.  The initiative was reopened following continued strong interest from (more…)