Tag Archives: Tax Cut and Jobs Act

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

Business Taxes, Part II of III on year-end tax planning

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This is Part II of three parts on year-end tax planning under the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. In our first part, we discussed the impact of the new law on personal taxes. In this part, we focus on small businesses.

Choice of Entity for Small Businesses

One of the biggest changes from the new tax law is the massive reduction in the tax rate for regular or “C” corporations. That may sound very appealing, but does this mean you should convert your S Corp. or LLC into a C Corp.? It could, if you expect to keep net income in your business.

If that is not your plan, i.e., if you want to take out money for yourself and other members, then use a pass-through entity instead of a C Corp. While a C Corp. may only pay taxes of 21% on its income, the amount the C Corp. distributes, via dividends or otherwise, will be taxed again to shareholders. If the shareholders are in the highest bracket, then income that started in the corporation had to pay over 52% in total taxes before getting into shareholders pockets. If you are a pass-through such as an LLC or partnership, then no tax is imposed at the entity level and entity members may qualify for the QBID on their personal returns – see below.

Be clear on your goals: do you want to leave net income in to grow the business for sale or an IPO? Or do you want to distribute net income to business members?  Deciding makes the choice clear.

Section 199A QBID

In our first part, we discussed the qualified business income deduction of 20% for certain pass-entities.. The deduction is complicated and subject to limitation. One such limitation is the total income of the taxpayer reported on her individual or joint tax return. The deduction phases out for high income taxpayers, starting at $157,500 of income for single taxpayers and $315,000 for married taxpayers, and phasing out when income exceeds $207,500 for single taxpayers and $415,000 for married taxpayers. There are wage and capital limits that can bring back a deduction when the phase out is exceeded, but that does not help service businesses as discussed below.

The deduction is “below the line,” so it does not reduce self-employment taxes or any items that are keyed to adjusted gross income (“AGI”). It also does not affect net operating losses.

Another limit is on income from a service business. This is defined as income from the following:

Health, law, accounting, consulting, financial services, performing arts, actuarial science, athletics, brokerage services, investing or trading in securities, or any business where the principal asset is the reputation or skill of its employees (there are now regulations on this last type, but those do not answer all questions).

Architects and engineers were excluded from the list in the final bill.

For those within the definition of service business, QBID drops to zero when the phase out is exceeded.

If you are bumping up against any limits for 2018, you will want to review ways to defer income to 2019 or reduce taxable income in 2018 by increasing your deductions.

Businesses use of Home

The new tax law imposes limits on Schedule A deductions, including state and local income and real estate taxes. If some of your real estate taxes otherwise subject this limit are for a home office or other business use, then the business portion is not limited and can be used to shelter business income.

New Rules on Entity-level Audits

Under the new tax law, LLCs and partnerships face substantial changes for the IRS audit procedures:

  1. Beginning in 2018, the IRS can audit such entities at the partnership or LLC level under the Centralized Partnership Audit Rules or “CPAR.” This gives the IRS new powers, one of which is the ability to impose a tax at the entity level and let the partners sort it all out, rather than the pre-2018 requirement to audit each partner; and
  2. The IRS would contact the Partnership Representative for the entity. If no PR has been designated, then the entity loses by default.

This means (a) updating your operating agreement to designate the PR in place of the tax matters partner and (b) electing out of the CPAR rules on your 2018 tax filing to avoid application of these unfavorable rules.

What is a WISP?

You have probably received e-mails and other notices asking you to review updated privacy policies from various vendors. Many of these were generated in response to adoption of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) by the European Union in May of 2018.

What too few companies know is that there are laws in the US that require implementation of privacy safeguarding. One affecting companies doing business in Massachusetts is the Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth in force since 2010.

If you are affected and have not either established or reviewed your company’s WISP (written information security program), please act right away to avoid liability for any potential breach.  Also, check the laws of any other state in which your do business to see what laws apply to your use of personal information.

Conclusion

If any of this raises questions for your year-end planning, let me know. I will be glad to see if can help.

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.