Casualty Losses Can Provide a 2017 Deduction, but Rules Tighten for 2018
If you suffered damage to your home or personal property last year, you may be able to deduct these “casualty” losses on your 2017 federal income tax return. For 2018 [...]
Getting a Divorce? Divide Assets and Tax Bills
With a divorce, there are often major financial consequences and some important tax issues too. Here are the tax rules that generally apply when a couple's assets are split up in [...]
Size of Charitable Deductions Depends on Many factors
Whether you’re claiming charitable deductions on your 2017 return or planning your donations for 2018, be sure you know how much you’re allowed to deduct. Your deduction depends on more [...]
IRS Approved Family Loan
Today's relatively low-interest-rate environment makes it easy to loan money to family members on favorable terms with full IRS approval. Here's a rundown of what the law covers and why [...]
Sec. 179 Expensing Provides Small Businesses Tax Savings on 2017 Returns — and more savings in the future
If you purchased qualifying property by December 31, 2017, you may be able to take advantage of Section 179 expensing on your 2017 tax return. You’ll also want to keep [...]
Tax deduction for moving costs: 2017 vs. 2018
If you moved for work-related reasons in 2017, you might be able to deduct some of the costs on your 2017 return — even if you don’t itemize deductions. (Or, [...]
Families with College Students May Save Tax on Their 2017 Returns With One of These Breaks
Whether you had a child in college (or graduate school) last year or were a student yourself, you may be eligible for some valuable tax breaks on your 2017 return. [...]
Succession Planning: Are You Ready?
Many business owners procrastinate putting a well-conceived succession plan in place. The reasons are understandable. It can be difficult to plan for your replacement and deal with your mortality. Here [...]
Insuring Employees Who Drive Their Own Cars
In many companies, employees drive during the course of their jobs — to make deliveries, call on customers or pick up supplies. In some cases, they use their own cars, [...]
TCJA temporarily lowers medical expense deduction threshold
With rising health care costs, claiming whatever tax breaks related to health care that you can is more important than ever. But there’s a threshold for deducting medical expenses that [...]
2 Tax Credits Just for Small Businesses May Reduce 2017 and 2018 Tax Bills
Tax credits reduce tax liability dollar-for-dollar, potentially making them more valuable than deductions, which reduce only the amount of income subject to tax. Maximizing available credits is especially important now [...]
Inventory Your Possessions
Nearly 60% of Americans don't have a home inventory of their possessions, and of those that do, 48% don't have any receipts evidencing their value.¹ It's great to have insurance [...]
Standard Mileage Rates for 2018 Up from Rates for 2017
The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2018 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. Beginning [...]
Can you deduct home office expenses?
Working from home has become commonplace. But just because you have a home office space doesn’t mean you can deduct expenses associated with it. And for 2018, even fewer taxpayers [...]