Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights Part 2 As taxpayers, most of us probably think that whatever the IRS says goes and that we as taxpayers don’t have much recourse. However, as a taxpayer in the United States you do have rights and they are documented in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. One of the rights listed on the IRS website at … Read More
IRS Shutdown – How worried Should You Be?
IRS Shut Down: How Worried Should You Be? What does the government partial shutdown mean regarding your tax return? Well, the IRS issued a new contingency plan to deal with the shutdown, but that hasn’t really helped tax professionals and lawmakers relax. There are gaps in the 132-page plan, but this is what we know: Returns will be accepted. Refunds … Read More
Clarifying the changes to the Child Tax Credit for 2018
Titanic shifts in the United States tax code continue to rock American taxpayers. Under the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) if you are a divorced parent, separated spouses or an unmarried parent, you may now be unable to fight over their children’s dependency exemptions in 2018 because lawmakers have eliminated the exemption.In 2017, the U.S. Congress passed … Read More
Property, state and local taxes are still deductible, up to a point
A momentous change took place last December 2017 in the form of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which is the tax reform bill that placed a new limit on deductions for state and local taxes, including property taxes. Previously these deductions were unlimited for individuals, though many people who owed the alternative minimum tax lost the benefit of … Read More
Personal Exemption Eliminated, Standard Deductions Doubled
There were a lot of changes announced when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) was revealed at the end of year. The new tax law for 2018 has fully eliminated many exemptions and taken taxpayers by surprise. One of the most surprising is the personal exemption. The TCJA has suspended all personal and dependent exemptions for tax … Read More
Wedding Gifts from the IRS and the Disappearing Marriage Penalty
It may be rare these days for a prospective husband to ask for permission or a blessing from his future father-in-law to marry his sweetheart, but there’s one additional blessing that may also be on his mind: acquiring the tax blessings bestowed by the Internal Revenue Service. Thanks to the new tax law changes found in the Tax Cuts and … Read More
What’s New in the Tax Cuts and Job Act Part 1
The Trump administration’s success in pushing through the new tax legislation marks a major achievement of it’s first year. But, according to one source, “the hurried, largely furtive drafting, and rush to passage at the end of 2017, have helped obscure the new tax regime’s real impact.” Focusing on the politics has muddled the sweeping repercussions of the Tax Cuts … Read More
US Corporation tax rate now lowest in 30 years
For decades, the United States was in the top twenty of the countries paying the highest statutory corporate income tax rates. Last year, American companies had to adhere to a whopping 38.9 percent rate while other developed countries were paying 22 and 25 percent rates. In fact, the only other countries paying 35 percent or more, were the United Arab … Read More