So, if your income tax preparation involves a few W-2 (salaried income), 1099s for interest and dividends and capital gains, even a 1099B for stock transactions (NOT Crypto, nothing more than 5 transactions), then you should be doing your own taxes. Because a professional is going to have charge way more than you want to pay to prepare your taxes. And, the professional won’t be able to come up with a lower tax bill than you could by yourself.
Tag Archives: Schedule E
Real Estate Rental?
A significant number of our clients (more than) dabble in real estate investing. Why? Because it’s a fantastic way to aggrandize one’s wealth. The tax breaks, even with breakeven rent, and the growth in capital (the value of the house increases) are hard to beat- especially in today’s market.
Why are you doing this, again?
Yesterday, we spoke about gig workers and the self-employed. But, there’s another sort of side job engaging many taxpayers. Renting out the basement or acquiring and renting a second home.
We covered death. Now, it’s time for taxes.
You know the tax law has changed. And, for many of you, that means that itemizing is no longer an option. (If you are married, the threshold of deductions needed to itemize went from $ 12K to $ 24K- and you are limited to $ 10K for the TOTAL of your property taxes and state/local income taxes. Of course, you could do as I have done for many a client- filed separately for the first time in decades. Where the threshold is $ 12K- and you still have that 10K max for property/state/local taxes….)
Continue reading We covered death. Now, it’s time for taxes.
QBI
I’ve discussed the new QBI (Qualified Business Income) regulations several times over the past few months. That’s the new classification that the Tax Cut & Jobs Act has provided to afford pass-through businesses the ability to shield 20% of their profits from income taxes.
Real Estate Gets Its Rule
One of the largest components (by number of practitioners) in our financial and managerial advisory services is real estate.
When a home office is not a home office
I’ve had a slew of folks argue with me that their business has no office but the one in their home. If their business is unincorporated (and if your net income is $ 25K or higher- shame on you for being unincorporated) or a disregarded LLC, I agree that they have the ability to claim part of their home’s expenses for business purposes, using Form 8829.
HR 1, too!
We began discussing the proposed changes to personal tax filings yesterday. We’ll finish with the changes to the individual tax system today-and then go on to the changes to the business tax filings.
HR 1
Let’s reiterate what I said yesterday– I don’t expect this bill to pass. Certainly not the way it was presented in the bill. These posts were written on 2 November- when the bill was published. Since then, the House has proposed changes to its own bill. And, 1 week later, the Senate published a slightly different version- which means that I will be adding to this series to contrast the differences between the two bills. (This series that was 5 blogs will now be 7.)
Mortgaged to the hilt?
What the IRS giveth, it often taketh away.
So, we know that if we are single and sell our primary residence, the first $ 250K of gains on that sale are deductible. Remember, those gains need to be properly determined.