Category Archives: Tax Changes

Tax Planning Hacks for your Itemized Deductions and more

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The Tax Cut and Jobs Act brought the most significant changes to our income taxes in the last thirty years.  We continue to assess its impact in this post, which provides updates and some strategies for items discussed at the end of 2018 in these three posts:

As a quick summary of the posts, in the first post, we discussed the impact of the new law on personal taxes; in the second post, we discussed planning for small businesses; and in our third post, we provided a practical guide for year-end action.   

Itemized deduction strategies

As we noted in these tax planning posts, far fewer US Taxpayers will itemize because of the increased $24,000 standard deduction for married couples ($12,000 for individuals).  One estimate is that the number will be about 6% of all taxpayers for 2018, down from over 30% in prior years. 

Bunching your itemized deductions into a single year is one way to push your total above the standard deduction amount, and thus restore the tax deduction benefit for such items as charitable donations.  We discussed bunching and giving to donor advised funds in our third post.  As we noted then, charitable donations are the easiest Schedule A items to which to apply bunching.

Miscellaneous deductions are gone;
Or are they? 

Now that the miscellaneous itemized deductions are gone, can you do anything with tax prep and investment fees? 

Take tax prep fees on other schedules

For the tax preparation fees, you can deduct those amounts on Schedule C, Schedule E (page 1), or Schedule F.  And, if you have K-1s, input the fees as unreimbursed expenses so that the fees flow to Schedule E (page 2).

Capitalize investment fees

As for investment fees, there is support for capitalizing these costs, but the support is not dispositive.  This interpretation of the Treasury regulations is that you can capitalize the cost of evaluating the value of stocks purchased and sold.  You would need to elect to capitalize the related fee for each transaction, so this could be a great deal of work, depending on the amount of fees and number of stocks purchased or sold in a given year.  Taking this approach seems fair, as the treatment parallels treatment of fees in mutual fund, where the advisory fees are netted out before capital gain and dividend distributions to shareholders. 

Notes:  First, that there is a Treasury memorandum that says you cannot add carrying costs to basis.  Second, even if you could, capitalizing takes a great deal of work so it may not be worth the effort. 

Kiddie tax

The first $1,050 of unearned income for children who are dependents is not taxed in 2018.  Amounts above that level are taxed at the same rate as trusts and estates.  Those brackets are quite compressed compared to individual brackets.  Nonetheless, a child of a parent in the 37% tax bracket can still have $12,500 of income taxed at a lower rate.  That could save taxes on college funds (but compare to sheltering in a 529 plan).

Child tax credit

The $2,000 child credit phases out at much higher adjusted income levels for 2018:  over $400,000 for married couples, $200,000 for single taxpayers.  If your child is age 17 or over, you lose the $2,000 credit, but you may qualify for the $500 dependent credit.   This credit could not only applies to college students, it covers disabled children, elderly parents and other family that are your dependents.      

QBID for rental real estate

The IRS regulations provide a safe harbor for people who spend 250 or more hours a year on activities related to their rental properties.  You will need to keep records of your time and maintain separate bank accounts for the activities. 

Enterprise Zone rollovers  

You can roll over gain from stock or other capital assets to investments in an enterprise zone, delaying tax on the gain, and even eliminating tax on a portion.  We will post more on this at a future date.

Estate taxes

With the doubling of the federal gift and estate tax credit, few estates will be subject to federal estate tax.  This means that gifting is not nearly as important as retaining low basis assets for the step at death.  By this we mean that keeping assets in your name results in those assets are treated as having basis equal to the fair market value at death, so your heirs only pay tax on any gain that occurs after your death. 

Conclusion

There have been many changes to our tax law, so if you are not sure how you are affected, contact me for some planning. Maybe we can help you save on taxes!

Steven

Impact of New Tax Law, Part I of III on year-end tax planning

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New Tax Law

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act made substantial changes to tax rates, deductions and credits for individuals, corporations and other entities. It also affected changes to estate taxes. For a summary of all changes, please see our post from December in 2017 year-end tax planning – a year of uncertainty.  Please also see the other parts of this series:  in the second part, we discussed planning for small businesses; in the third part, we provided a practical guide for year-end action; and in Tax Planning Hacks, we discussed planning ideas for your Itemized Deductions and more.

The purpose of this post is to get you started on year-end planning to take advantage of the TCJA changes.

What is the Impact of New Tax Law?

We have been reviewing the impact of the new law with projections in our CCH ProSystem Fx tax software. While many individuals lose deductions in 2018 that they were previously allowed, that does not mean that their taxes increase as much they feared. Here are some reasons why:

  • They probably do not owe the AMT as they have in the past.
  • The change in rates lowers total taxes for many.
  • The passthrough deduction discussed below can make a big change.

If you want us to review the impact on your taxes, please let me know.

Clarifications on New Tax Law

Mortgage interest remains deductible even on an equity line of credit (ELOC), provided proceeds from the ELOC were used to purchase or substantially improve your home. However, if the proceeds were used for consumption, then the interest is not deductible.

The deduction for state and local income taxes (SALT) and property taxes is capped at $10,000. However, property taxes for rental properties are still fully deductible against rental income on Schedule E. And farmers and self-employed taxpayers can still deduct the business portion of the taxes on Schedules F and C. Finally, you may be able to use a trust to share ownership of a property with beneficiaries so that they can deduct a portion of the property taxes.

Change for Small Businesses

One of the biggest changes is the qualified business income deduction (“QBID”) under section 199A, also know as the pass-through deduction. This deduction reduces taxable income from qualifying businesses by 20% for taxpayers under the income limitations. This is, net profits form the business after any W-2 salary paid to the owners is reduced.

Pass through businesses include sole proprietors, S corporations, LLCs and partnerships. They also include real estate investment trusts (“REITs”) and certain publicly traded partnerships (“PTP”). But there are income limits and thresholds that eliminate the QBID service companies. Here is a good chart on that may help you see if you qualify for the 20% deduction. Also, watch for more in our next post.

Planning under 199A for QBID

If you have a pass-through business and your year-end planning shows that you may hit the income limits that reduce or eliminate the deduction, you can move income and deductions for Schedule A to change that. Push income into next year and bring any deductions from next year into this year. If you succeed in getting back under the income the limitation, you get a 120% benefit for the right offs – that is, 100% deduction value on Schedule A and 20% QBID value.

The income limits are toughest on service companies. If your small business is a service company, you may want to break out any non-service business to get the benefit of QBID. A professional office that does billing, debt collection or operates a professional building may be able to put those activities in separate entities that qualify for QBID. Furthermore, if your small business is considering buying an office, keep that in a separate entity from the business.

Conclusion

Watch for Part II coming soon. In the meantime, please contact us if you have any questions.

2017 year-end tax planning – a year of uncertainty (updated)

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(as also seen online at IRIS)

The Republican Congress is in the process of passing the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, a new tax law. President Trump is expected to sign it by Christmas.

The law was created and passed hastily and affects many aspects of the federal tax code, so many details are still not clear. Furthermore, regulations have yet to be issued. Also, while the provisions affecting corporations are permanent, most affecting individuals expire in 2026. Thus, tax planning is complicated.

How do you plan? Very carefully – you need to augment your traditional year-end planning by anticipating the impact of the many changes.

Note: many proposed changes did not make the final law, so be sure you are referring to the final version when making your planning decisions!

Planning steps

First, be practical:

  • Determine what income and deductions you can move from 2017 to 2018 or vice versa.

Second, review the impact:

  • What happens if you shift any of these amounts of income and deductions to the other year?

Finally, watch for the impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax (“AMT”):

  • The exemption for the AMT and the threshold above which that exemption gets phased out both rise next year, so some deductions lost to the AMT in 2017 could have value in 2018. Others simply vanish next year, so you need to plan carefully!

Income

The new law lowers the tax brackets, so income will be generally subject to less tax in 2018.

Conclusion: You probably want to move income to next year if you can.

Exemptions and standard deduction

The new law eliminates personal exemptions and raises standard deductions to $12,000 for single filers and to $24,000 for married couples. These amounts will be indexed for inflation. The increased standard deduction may offset deductions that you lose, as discussed below. If you have children and others who are dependents, those tax credits are increased, which may help as well.

Conclusion: You probably want to move itemized deductions to 2017.

Itemized Deductions and Credits

The deduction for property taxes and for state and local income taxes is capped at $10,000.

Mortgage interest on new home purchases is deductible only for loans of up to $750,000 used to purchase your primary residence. Interest on home equity loans will not be deductible. (It is not clear if converting any part of home equity indebtedness that was used to purchase or improve your primary residence to a mortgage would make that interest deductible, subject to the cap.)

All miscellaneous deductions are eliminated. This includes investment and tax preparation fees, safe deposit box charges and unreimbursed employee expenses.

The casualty loss deduction is also eliminated and the bike to work exclusion ends.

Moving expenses will no longer be allowed (except for military personnel in certain cases).

The deduction of alimony will be eliminated for divorces occurring after 2018.

What survived? The deduction of student loan interest and medical expenses survived. The latter is subject to a 7.5% rather than a 10% floor. And, the new law repeals the reduction applied to itemized deductions for high-income taxpayers, which may help with some deductions.

Here are several items that were considered for limitation or elimination that remain unchanged:

Dependent care accounts, adoption expenses, tuition waivers and employer paid tuition, capital gains on the sale of your personal residence, the teacher deduction, electric car credit, Archer medical accounts and designating shares of stock or mutual funds sold.

Conclusion: you will want to move any of the eliminated deductions that you can prepay into 2017.

Note: a last-minute provision added to the new law makes prepaying 2018 income taxes in 2017 non-deductible.

Pass-through businesses

If you have income from a sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership or S Corporation, you may be able to deduct 20% of that income, subject to certain rules on wages and a phaseout beginning at $157,500 for singles and $315,000 for married taxpayers. These rules are designed to avoid abuse seen when Kansas enacted a similar law.  (Watch for a post on this soon.)

Conclusion: read the fine print (e.g. rules for personal service firms) to see if there are any opportunities you can exploit.

Estate taxes

The credit before estate or gift taxes are due is doubled to $10,000,000, indexed for inflation.

Conclusion: you may want to postpone your year-end gift planning.

Summary

Carefully review any income and deductions that you can still shift to see if moving will lessen the total taxes you pay for 2017 and 2018.

Good luck and best wishes for the holidays!

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Tax Law change under the new Trump Administration? Maybe, but too soon for planning

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Enacting Major Changes Will Take Time

(as also appeared online in IRIS.xyz)

President Trump made tax reform a key issue in his campaign. He is now president and Republicans are in charge of the House and Senate, so the likelihood of overhauling the federal tax system is better than they have been for decades.

However, President Trump and Congress are trying to enact changes to the Affordable Care Act as well as addressing budget issues and foreign relations. Also, dealing with all the recent hearings involving the FBI have diverted attention. Finally, there are many details that need to be worked out, making it unlikely that major changes will happen until 2018.

Change in IRS Regulations

President Trump has already made changes in IRS regulations. On his first day in office, he temporarily froze tax regulations and then shortly thereafter, ordered that two existing regulations had to be removed for each one that was added. What is the impact?

  • The Trump administration has stated that the two-for-one exchange rule only applies to significant regulatory actions. The rule may not affect the many IRS regulations that are procedural in nature or are needed by taxpayers.
  • One new regulation that has been threatened is the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary rules for retirement advisers. This updated regulation requires retirement advisers to act in their clients’ best interests, which is a stricter standard than was previously required.
  • Also affected are the new partnership audit procedure. A 2015 law streamlined the exam process of large partnerships. The IRS released proposed regulations which implemented the regime on January 18. However, it later pulled the regulations in response to the freeze.

Possible Tax Law Changes – Lower Corporate Tax Rate

Currently, the corporate tax rate tops out at 35%. House Republicans want to lower it to 20% with 25% for businesses that pass income through their owners and for those that are self-employed. President Trump is calling for a 15% corporate tax. In 2014, nearly 25 million Americans filed taxes as sole proprietors (Schedule C), so the change affects many taxpayers.

Tax strategy: Under this change, individuals who are high-earning could become independent contractors or set up LLCs to shift income and advantage of the lower corporate tax rate. Additionally, those who own pass-through businesses could reduce their salaries and take higher profits.

This is how residents of Kansas responded to a similar state law. The state is now working to repeal a law passed in 2012 that exempted pass-through firms from state income tax. The result was that many individuals and businesses in the state restructured their business as pass-through entities or created new businesses to take advantage of the tax break. In just a few years, the number of pass-throughs in the state almost doubled. The state is now facing a large budget deficit as a result because the pass-through exemption is estimated to have cost the state $472 million in 2014 alone. The cost for 2015 was even higher.

The impact of this tax strategy on the 15% tax at the federal level would be expensive. It is estimated to cost up to $1.95 trillion in lost tax revenues over the next ten years. The Trump administration is considering ways to prevent abuse of this low tax rate but any attempt to prevent gaming the system will likely add more complexity to the tax code. Tax-savvy practitioners will likely still be able to find loopholes.

Tax only on Income Earned inside the US

Worldwide income is taxed presently, with credits for foreign taxes paid. The proposed law would generally tax only income that is earned within U.S.

Multinational Tax: A new, low tax on multinationals is part of the proposed tax, added to raise revenue to fund other rate reductions.

Estate Tax Repeal

Republicans would like to repeal the estate tax. President Trump would impose a tax on pre-death appreciation of assets, with a $10 million per couple exemption. There would be no step up in basis at death. And it is likely that gift tax rules would be retained.

Even if the federal estate tax law is repealed, many states will continue to impost a tax. Massachusetts only exempts $1 million of assets passing to someone other than a spouse, such as a trust. New York and other states have higher exemptions. Thus, planning is still important for most people.

Planning Opportunities

With the uncertainty of any change being enacted, this is not an easy year for planning. For example, this may not be the year for a Roth conversion, if tax rates will go down next year. It may not be the time for complex estate planning techniques involving irrevocable transfers, if the estate tax is eliminated in 2018.

We will keep monitoring this to assess any moves that do make sense and update this post when the likelihood of real changes becomes clear.

Tax Law Changes Coming, including raised capital gains and dividend tax rates

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This month, President Obama released his proposed FY 2014 budget which contains new taxes, limits on deductions, and other changes intended to meet the goal of raising more than $580 billion in revenue.
The most significant of these is the termination of capital gains breaks and qualified dividend treatment, causing them both to be taxed as ordinary income. The Kiplinger Tax Letter suggests taking capital gains before 2015 to lock in the lower rate. However, as always, do not let a tax strategy override a good investment plan.
Here is a summary of other changes that may affect you:
The 28% Limitation:
• Affects married taxpayers filing jointly with income over $250,000 and single taxpayers with income over $200,000.
• Limits the tax rate at which these taxpayers can reduce their tax liability to a maximum of 28%.
• Applies to all itemized deduction including charitable contributions, mortgage interest, employer provided health insurance, interest income on state and local bonds, foreign excluded income, tax-exempt interest, retirement contributions and certain above-the-line deductions.
The “Buffet Rule”
• Households with income over $1 million pay at least 30% of their income (after charitable donations) in tax.
• Implements a “Fair Share Tax,” which would equal 30% of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income, less a charitable donation credit equal to 28% of itemized charitable contributions allowed after the overall limitation on itemized deductions. The Fair Share Tax would be phased in, starting at adjusted gross incomes of $1 million, and would be fully phased in at adjusted gross incomes of $2 million.
Estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) Tax
• Reintroduce rules that were in effect in 2009, except that portability of the estate tax exclusion between spouses would be retained.
• This change would take effect in 2018.
• Top tax rate would be 45% and the exclusion amount would be $3.5 million for estate and GST taxes, and $1 million for gift taxes.
The Kiplinger Tax Letter anticipates the changes being acted on as early as 2014. On April 23, 2013, Max Baucus (D-MT), the head of the Senate Finance Committee, announced he would retire from the U.S. Senate at the end of his term in 2015. In The Kiplinger Tax Latter, Vol. 88, No. 9, Kiplinger predicts that “he’ll push to make revamping the tax code his legacy.”
You may feel as though you are done with taxes and do not need address them for another year. Resist that urge and schedule a meeting with us so we can review the potential impact of proposed tax changes on your portfolio and investments. We can also discuss the best strategies for saving money on your 2013 and 2014 tax returns.