Learn about what’s on Congress’ plate between now and the November election including Included many tax-related bills, potentially impacting individuals, businesses and others.
Preserving and managing wealth requires addressing a number of major issues. These include saving for your children’s education and funding your own retirement. Juggling these competing demands is no trick. Rather, it requires a carefully devised and maintained wealth management plan.
The IRS recently released its Spring 2016 Statistics of Income (SOI) Bulletin containing a treasure-trove of useful information. The bulletin contains data gleaned from more than 148 million individual income tax returns filed for the 2014 tax year (TY). The data for 2014 reveal a corresponding increase in tax liability across all tax brackets. The SOI bulletin presents the most recent figures available for the 2014 tax year from various tax and information returns filed by U.S. taxpayers. In addition, the report compares the data to similar statistics measured in 2013. In general, the latest report shows a continued improvement in the national economy, year over year.
As Congress’ August recess nears, lawmakers are moving tax legislation for individuals and businesses. Bills targeted to tax reform, small business tax relief, and more have been introduced and are working their way to votes in the House and Senate. Congress is also grappling with the IRS’s budget for fiscal year (FY) 2017.
The 2016 filing season has closed with renewed emphasis on IRS cybersecurity, tax-related identity theft and customer service.
Passage of the “Tax Extenders” undeniably provided one of the major headlines – and tax benefits – to come out of the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (PATH Act), signed into law on December 18, 2015. Although these tax extenders (over 50 of them in all) were largely made retroactive to January 1, 2015, valuable enhancements to some of these tax benefits were not made retroactive. Rather, these enhancements were made effective only starting January 1, 2016. As a result, individuals and businesses alike should treat these enhancements as brand-new tax breaks, taking a close look at whether one or several of them may apply. Following are items to consider as 2016 tax planning gets underway now that tax filing-season has ended.
Both Congress and the White House want to increase access, coverage and participation in retirement savings plans. A recent study indicates that a majority of American households may not be able to maintain their standard of living after retirement and that the current private pension system is not working well enough to avoid the problem.
Enhanced Code Sec. 179 expensing and the high-dollar health care excise tax are two proposals in President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2017 budget that could become law before the end of his term. Other proposals nclude enhancements to small business tax incentives, expanded opportunities for retirement savings, revisions to the net investment income (NII) tax, and more.
In recent years, identity theft has mushroomed and during the filing season, tax-related identity theft is especially prevalent. Identity thieves typically file fraudulent returns early in the filing season, before unsuspecting taxpayers file their legitimate returns. Criminals gamble that the IRS will not detect the false return and will issue a fraudulent refund.