Taxes

The House Democrats’ latest plan to adjust the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction would provide little or no benefit for low and middle-income households but generate a substantial tax windfall for those with much higher incomes, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center. The latest plan would raise

There is some good news from the IRS for retirement savers; they have announced an increase to the contributions limits for workers with a 401(k), 403(b) and 457 defined contribution plans for 2022. Larger contributions will allow you to defer more income from taxation. This will be great for high-income Americans who are facing potentially higher

Topline Democrats’ social spending bill, the Build Back Better proposal, currently comes with a price tag of $1.8 trillion, but a nonpartisan report Thursday said the package will also raise about $1.5 trillion in revenue through a slew of new taxes targeting corporations and ultra-wealthy Americans—findings that could help the package find the support it

Inflation means you can—and probably should—contribute more to your workplace retirement account in 2022. The Treasury Department has announced inflation-adjusted figures for retirement account savings for 2022. While contribution limits are up for workplace plans, contribution limits for Individual Retirement Accounts are stuck at 2019 levels. “The real question is whether people pay attention to this,”

The November 3 version of the Build Back Better Act has resurrected retirement law changes that will curb high balance accounts and popular wealth building strategies including backdoor Roth IRAs and aftertax 401(k) contributions. There’s also a new $2.5 million retirement account reporting mandate, presumably to help the Internal Revenue Service with compliance. The changes

Many taxpayers learned that unemployment benefits are taxable the hard way earlier this year when they filed their 2020 income tax returns. It came as such a blow to so many people, after what was a horrible year in so many other ways, that Congress included a tax exemption for the first $10,200 of unemployment

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins discusses the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on taxpayers, recent IRS program changes, and what’s to come from the annual Taxpayer Advocate Service report to Congress. 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

Last week, a coalition of engineers released a report concluding that Florida cities needed to conduct more regular safety inspections of high-rise buildings near the coast. The report was in response to this summer’s horrific collapse of a beachfront condominium in Surfside that killed 98 people.  The recommendations should be no surprise to anyone who

This segment of What’s Ahead lays out a tax idea that should please blue state Democrats bereft from the loss of the deduction for state and local taxes, or what is dubbed SALT.  Congressional Democrats are feverishly trying to figure out a way to restore the SALT deduction that was virtually eliminated in the 2017

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about retirement benefit rates and whether they can be increased, what people could be referring to by the term “spousal bump” and when Social Security might review disability status. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc.

While the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan remains stalled on Capitol Hill, some are pushing for a faster way to get money to states and localities to respond to extreme weather events and improve their roads, bridges and transit. Legislation now making its way through Congress would allow governments to use some of their direct funding

One of the impacts of Brexit that some organizations may have overlooked relates to the movement of own goods/ the provision of goods within a corporate group and what happens when those goods cross a customs border.  The overlooked area Many multinational groups centralize functions such as IT and the provision of spare parts. It

Was your tax refund higher this year? Join the crowd. But don’t celebrate. Average tax refund amounts were way up this year over last year, according to the Internal Revenue Service’s recent updates to its cumulative 2021 tax filing season statistics as of October 22. For the 2021 tax filing season (for the 2020 tax year),

Family law attorney Sue Moss thinks that Judge Emin Toro of the United States Tax Court has done a great disservice to women, particularly Orthodox Jewish women, in his decision in the case of the Estate of Semone Grossman. She fears that this decision of a federal court may smuggle inequitable patriarchal principles into family law. She

On Friday, the White House held an online meeting advocating housing policies in the President’s Build Back Better (BBB) legislation—reducing land use restrictions and exclusionary zoning that limit affordable housing construction.  Will these result in the “learning and listening” the White House envisions?  Or are these part of Biden’s efforts at “abolishing the suburbs,” as some conservatives claim? The

Congressional Democrats are pushing a bill called the Tobacco Tax Equity Act that would double the federal tax on cigarettes and raise levies on other tobacco products 15-fold. E-cigarettes would also be hit hard. This segment of What’s Ahead explains why this legislation should be snuffed out. The resultant higher prices for less lethal tobacco

After flirting with a plan to tax billionaires on unrealized gains, Democrats have backed off and reverted to a surtax on rich Americans’ income that will barely impact The Forbes 400. Anti-billionaire sentiment and calls to close the wealth inequality gap led Democratic lawmakers earlier this week to float an ambitious plan to tax the

The Covid-19 pandemic continues, and just as people speculate about how much it will change our cities, there are claims of historic changes in the job market.  A blog from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management tells us “the workplace is never going to look the same” as a result of the pandemic. But just as with cities, this is

Though the rollover is the most frequent IRA transaction, most people do only a few rollovers during their lifetimes. Because of this inexperience, mistakes are made and people pay unnecessary taxes and penalties on their retirement nest eggs. There are more than 30 types of rollovers, though taxpayers often know them by different names. A

Thanks to Brandon Ketron, CPA, JD, LLM and Ian McClean for their input on this post. “The Sky Wasn’t Falling” I thought I was Noah but it turned out I was Chicken Little. We all know the story of Noah’s Ark. It was Noah who began to build the Ark just before it started to