Taxes

This is an extremely tough question to answer on your own. The number of major, interconnected factors includes your retirement age, the return you can safely earn on savings, the inflation rate, your retirement accounts, your regular assets, your mortgages, student loans, and other debts, your earnings, your federal FICA and income taxes, your state

Last week I told you about alternative tax thinker Brian Swanson. Others might call Brian a tax protester, which is how Wikipedia refers to someone who claims the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. Less than an hour after I pushed publish I found that two of Brian’s cases had been closed out –

Congress expanded a tax trap for many owners of traditional IRA and 401(k) accounts when the SECURE Act 2.0 was enacted in December 2022. The law delayed the starting age for required minimum distributions (RMDs) to age 73, effective January 1, 2023. The starting age will jump to 75 effective January 1, 2033. If you

More than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic started, returning to the office versus working from home still hasn’t settled down. There’s an ongoing tension around working from home between management’s need for innovation and discipline versus workers’ desires for more flexible arrangements and reduced commuting time. As urbanist and historian Dror Poleg likes to

You’ve probably heard about the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 (LSG, H.R. 2811), which narrowly passed the House of Representatives last month. It features prominently in the ongoing debate over the federal debt ceiling. It’s the GOP’s wish list of spending cuts, totaling $4.8 trillion over the 10-year budget window, according to the Congressional

The IRS does not need to notify third parties when requesting a summons for banking records in collection matters. That was the decision of the Supreme Court in Polselli v. Internal Revenue Service. Background The case involved taxpayer Remo Polselli who underpaid his federal taxes for many years, resulting in an outstanding balance of more

The IRS has announced more cost-of-living adjustments—these focus on changes affecting health savings accounts (HSAs), high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) The details can be found in Revenue Procedure 2023-23. Here’s a summary. HSA For calendar year 2024, the annual HSA contribution limit for taxpayers with self-only coverage under a high-deductible health

Earlier this month, a group of Senators sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel about the use of AI—artificial intelligence—technology, including ChatGPT, to engage in scams aimed at taxpayers. Eric Hylton is the National Director of Compliance at alliantgroup, but he previously served as IRS Commissioner of the Small Business/Self Employed Division, as well

The conventional term for someone like Brian Swanson is tax protester, which Wikipedia defines as someone who refuses to pay a tax claiming that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. In 1998 Congress forbade IRS from designating people “illegal tax protesters”, but that does not prevent others including the courts from throwing the

Professors Bridget Crawford and Victoria Haneman discuss the estate and gift tax and how it could apply to the gifts received by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This

Charitable giving has long been essential to creating a better world by enabling donors to support causes by giving to organizations structured under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)3. Effective charitable planning and planned giving are crucial for maximizing the positive impact of these donations. With advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, tools like ChatGPT

When it comes to education, most financial planning is centered around ways to save and invest for college. This makes sense because in an ideal world, we’d all be able to cover all our education expenses that way and not need to borrow a dime. But in the real world, that’s rarely the case. Fortunately,

The emergency declaration for Covid-19 expired on May 11, 2023—and it comes with some tax consequences. A lot changed during Covid-19, especially for employers. Some shut their doors forever, some closed temporarily, and still others modified their work model so that employees could work remotely. As employers scrambled to keep workers on the payroll, questions

Most people know that if they receive cash, it is probably taxable unless it is an honest to goodness gift. Most people know that if they receive property, that the property is probably also taxed, again, unless it is a true gift. More about gifts below. But how about what happens if it doesn’t seem

A global carbon price of $75 per ton may be the magic number to help blunt damaging carbon emissions. That’s what Kristalina Georgieva, head of the IMF, told Reuters in November 2022 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. But it’s hard to say if the world is close to achieving that

The advertising-supported digital business model is a common strategy used by many companies. The core principle of this model is providing users with a free service, such as search results or social media networking, while generating revenue through advertising. Advertisers pay the company to display ads, and the company employs data and algorithms to personalise

There is confusion about what happens when you inherit a Roth IRA. The rules surrounding required minimum distributions (RMD) from an inherited Roth IRA are different than the Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) you opened and funded yourself. Additionally, the RMD rules for your Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) differ from those for a traditional

Crypto taxes are back in the news. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden tweeted out an infographic that suggested that Congress should cut “Tax Loopholes That Help Wealthy Crypto Investors ($18 billion).” The language had some in the industry scratching their heads: What’s the $18 billion loophole? The White House did not clarify where the dollar

Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT VT ) ; introduced S.1178, 118th Cong., 1st Sess. (April 18, 2023) and Representative Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) introduced H.R. 2676, 118th Cong., 1st Sess. (April 18, 2023), identical bills entitled “For the 99.5 Percent Act,”. WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 18: Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) speaks during a press conference outside the

Once again, the most popular names for babies born in the United States are Liam and Olivia—Liam has topped the list for six years in a row, and Olivia has been the top choice for new parents for four years. The rankings are determined by Social Security Administration (SSA) data based on applications for Social