Taxes

Congress has been making it harder and harder to deduct charitable contributions. Know the latest rules so the IRS won’t be able to deny tax breaks for your charitable donations. The increase in the standard deduction in the 2017 tax law means you have to give more to receive a tax break. You deduct charitable

Social Security is supposed to be inflation-proof. It’s anything but. Today’s the day tens of millions of retirees learn about their annual Social Security “bonus.” I’m referring to the system’s COLA (Cost-of-Living Adjustment), which, as announced on Thursday, will raise recipients’ benefits by 8.7% starting with checks received in January. The COLA is supposed to

In Schweizer v. Comm’r TC Memo 2022-102, the Tax Court held that the denial of a $600,000 charitable deduction for the donation of a work of art was reasonable because the tax return included an incomplete Form 8283 as well as the taxpayer’s reliance, and lack of care and ordinary prudence, on a professionally prepared

In February 2022 the IRS issued proposed regulations that surprised a lot of tax advisors and indicated a number of heirs incurred penalties for not taking actions they didn’t know about. In early October the IRS said it would waive those penalties for 2021 and 2022. The proposed regulations were issued under the Setting Every

Business owners and the self-employed get hit twice as hard by payroll and Social Security taxes. Put another way; if you were self-employed for your entire career, you would likely pay double the taxes for the same Social Security benefits as those who worked as employees their entire careers. You may get more bang for

Dan Neidle of Tax Policy Associates in London discusses the United Kingdom’s recent mini-budget and what effects the new tax proposals may have. 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 week: mini-budget, big changes.

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 by a white police officer, protestors called on governments to improve racial equity. A new report from the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy and Brookings Metro assesses promising initial steps by governments in measuring racial equity and lays out a framework to help the field

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The jeers that greeted Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss’ minor tax cut proposals glaringly expose the utter lack of enlightenment found in so many of today’s policymakers and commentators. Instead of retreating, Truss should double down by instituting what would be a growth-boosting virtual flat tax.

“We know now that inflation results from all that deficit spending. Government has only two ways of getting money other than raising taxes. It can go into the money market and borrow, competing with its own citizens and driving up interest rates, which it has done, or it can print money, and it’s done that.

If you are a business owner, independent contractor, or sole proprietor, you may be looking for more ways to minimize your taxes. One of the biggest tax-planning strategies that small business owners ignore is the Solo 401(k). You could save tens of thousands of dollars in taxes if you qualify annually. As a tax-planning financial

A proposed major semiconductor complex for upstate New York is raising hopes of a revived American manufacturing sector. But the deal is built on massive taxpayer subsidies, reminding us of America’s pattern of government giveaways to businesses with no net economic benefits, especially for low-income people and communities. Which will we get this time? First,

If you did not take your required minimum distribution from your inherited IRA in 2021 or 2022 because of the confusing messaging from the SECURE Act, and you fall into a specific class of beneficiary, you do not owe the usual 50% excise tax on RMD shortfalls. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement

A California man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring with others in schemes to defraud the IRS and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). According to court documents and statements made in court, Quin Ngoc Rudin, 55, a convicted felon, was the Secretary, Director and Chief Financial Officer of Mana Tax Services, a

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about the earnings test and retirement benefits, spousal benefits while a retirement benefit is suspended and survivor’s benefits and public pensions. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See more Ask Larry answers here. Have Social

California has passed two laws to shield certain wildfire victims from state tax on their legal settlements in wildfire cases. One law applies to PG&E recoveries, the other to Edison suits. Both bills provide needed tax relief, but the IRS still treats lawsuit settlements as taxable. Most legal settlements are taxable, even for a devastating

The IRS already announced that it extended until 2/15 the tax deadlines for hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and then made a similar extension to both Carolinas. But how about those FBAR foreign account forms? The IRS enforces the law, but FBARs are handled by FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Fortunately, FinCEN announced that

Does today’s unemployment report signal a looming recession? The Federal Reserve seems on course for further interest rate increases, even at the cost of higher and discriminatory increases in unemployment. And there’s nothing in today’s report that will likely move the Fed from its current path. Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)

Eric Solomon of Steptoe & Johnson LLP discusses the new excise tax on corporate stock buybacks and examines the issues that the IRS and Treasury will need to tackle before its implementation. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of

Taxes and baseball don’t seem to go together, but America’s sport sometimes meets America’s great leveler: the income tax and the folks down at the IRS. Cory Youmans was the lucky catcher of Aaron Judge’s record-breaking 62nd homer run at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, but is the IRS really after him? Not exactly.

The plan to starve the beast might not go quite as expected. The latest parry in the skirmish over the IRS’s expanded funding in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, P.L. 117-169) would rescind the bulk of the appropriated amounts. But a better approach would be for Congress to be more precise about what exactly it