On Friday President Obama signed into law The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010. Known as the law that extends the "Bush tax cuts" there are some lesser known included provisions impacting individual income tax payers: AMT "PATCH": The AMT exemption for 2010 increases to $47,450 for single filers and [...]
TAX CREDIT FOR CHARITABLE DONATIONS: A bill that would provide tax credits for charitable contributions has been stalled in the House since its introduction earlier this year. HR 4702 would let taxpayers take a credit of up to $1,000 for charitable contributions or opt for an itemized deduction. The bill has remained idle in the [...]
Lots of rhetoric has been wasted frightening the public about the impending tax "increases" scheduled for Jan 1st if Congress does not take action. A fair, plain language summary of the issues and challenges is available here along with estimates of lost revenue to Treasury if the "Bush cuts" are extended.
In 1726 Daniel Defoe wrote in The Political History of the Devil, "Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed." The more familiar phrase was used by Benjamin Franklin writing in a 1789 letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, "In this world nothing can be certain, except death and taxes." In 2010 Apollo [...]
President Obama's debt-reduction panel is looking at curbing the more than $1 trillion in tax breaks the Internal Revenue Code provides as a way to raise money without raising income taxes. This sounds fair. Why should special interests get tax breaks while the average American foots the bill? Here's a sampling of some of the [...]
A provision in last month's Small Business Jobs and Credit Act will allow the self-employed to fully deduct health insurance expenses for the 2010 tax year. To qualify the business must be a sole proprietorship, single-member LLC or sole-owner S-corp. Important points of note are as follows: To take advantage of the deduction the self-employed [...]
Tired of amended and late-arriving 1099s delaying your tax returns? Help is on the way. The House of Representatives passed on Wednesday the Regulated Investment Company Modernization Act (H.R. 4337) marking the first regulatory update of mutual fund taxation in over 20 years. The most notable provisions permit mutual funds to earn income from commodities [...]
Proposed legislation from our friends in the House and Senate: HR 5318 (The Small Business Investment Penalty Relief Act of 2010) would waive the 10% penalty on early distributions from retirement plans if the funds were used for small-business investments. The bill is similar to HR 3612 and HR 3390. S 3720 and HR 6099 [...]
At the time of this post the House is debating HR 5077 - a bill that, if passed, provides for the permanent increase of AMT exemptions and indexes them for inflation. For tax year 2010 the exemption amount for individual filers would jump to $75,000. Joint filers would see their exemption jump to $100,000. Stay [...]
The Simpsons in its earliest years offered the type of TV we associate with All in the Family - social commentary in a comedic wrapper. The "Deep Space Homer" episode originally airing 2/24/94 didn't fail to disappoint. The premise - humorous in and of itself - was a despondent NASA desperately searching for higher ratings [...]