Stretch Your College Student’s Spending Money With the Dependent Tax Credit
If you’re the parent of a child who is age 17 to 23, and you pay all (or most) of his or her expenses, you may be surprised to learn [...]
Vehicle-Expense Deduction Ins and Outs for Individual Taxpayers
It’s not just businesses that can deduct vehicle-related expenses. Individuals also can deduct them in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) might reduce your deduction compared [...]
5 Last-Minute Ideas to Lower Your 2018 Taxes
It's almost Tax Day! But don't despair; there still may be time to make some moves that will save taxes for your 2018 tax year. Here are five tax-saving ideas [...]
Is An HSA Right For You?
Health care costs have skyrocketed over the last few decades. Fortunately, health savings accounts (HSAs) allow qualifying individuals to pay for certain medical expenses with pretax dollars. Here is what [...]
Some of Your Deductions May Be Smaller (or nonexistent) When You File Your 2018 Tax Return
While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) reduces most income tax rates and expands some tax breaks, it limits or eliminates several itemized deductions that have been valuable to [...]
3 Big TCJA Changes Affecting 2018 Individual Tax Returns and Beyond
When you file your 2018 income tax return, you’ll likely find that some big tax law changes affect you — besides the much-discussed tax rate cuts and reduced itemized deductions. [...]
2018 Income Tax Withholdings: Too Much, Too Little or Just Right?
Did you withhold enough money from your regular paychecks in 2018? If you withheld too little — or, didn't pay enough estimated taxes if you're self-employed — you could have [...]
Why You Shouldn’t Wait to File Your 2018 Income Tax Return
The IRS opened the 2018 income tax return filing season on January 28. Even if you typically don’t file until much closer to the April 15 deadline, this year consider [...]
Stop Wasting Money
Benjamin Franklin once said, "a penny saved is a penny earned."¹ The modern upgrade to that observation might be that $100 not spent is more like $143.² One way to [...]
Depreciation-related Breaks on Business Real Estate: What You Need to Know When You File Your 2018 Return
Commercial buildings and improvements generally are depreciated over 39 years, which essentially means you can deduct a portion of the cost every year over the depreciation period. (Land isn’t depreciable.) [...]
What Will Your Marginal Income Tax Rate Be?
While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) generally reduced individual tax rates for 2018 through 2025, some taxpayers could see their taxes go up due to reductions or eliminations [...]
What’s Happened to My Tax-Free Transportation Fringe Benefits?
Over the years, Congress has established some nice tax breaks for transportation-related employee fringe benefits to encourage taxpayers to be more ecology-minded when commuting to work. But, the Tax Cuts [...]
2 Major Tax Law Changes for Individuals in 2019
While most provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) went into effect in 2018 and either apply through 2025 or are permanent, there are two major changes under [...]
A Refresher on Major Tax Law Changes for Small-Business Owners
The dawning of 2019 means the 2018 income tax filing season will soon be upon us. After year end, it’s generally too late to take action to reduce 2018 taxes. [...]
Treating a Stock Purchase as an Asset Acquisition
When it comes to making an acquisition, stock and asset purchases have their advantages and disadvantages but there might be a way to combine the best of both worlds. Buying [...]