In an IRS private letter ruling, an estate was granted a 120-day extension to make a portability election under the Internal Revenue Code. The extension allows the surviving spouse to take into account the decedent’s deceased spousal unused exclusion (DSUE) amount. An estate tax return wasn’t filed on time and a portability election wasn’t made. […]

Read More Estate granted extension

It’s holiday time, but not everyone is sharing goodwill. Thieves are hoping to catch people off guard, and a favorite target is senior citizens. Next month, the 2024 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) rolls out automatically to Social Security (SS) recipients. But thieves have been using phone calls, texts and emails to contact seniors, impersonating government agents. […]

Read More Watch out for scams and thieves

Businesses that buy commercial clean vehicles may qualify for the Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit. It equals the lesser of 15% of the basis of the vehicle (30% if not gas powered) or the vehicle’s incremental cost. The maximum credit is $7,500 for qualified vehicles under 14,000 pounds. The incremental cost is the excess of the […]

Read More The Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit

Business owners still have a small handful of shopping days left to buy tax-deductible supplies. As you know, you can generally write off the ordinary and necessary costs of carrying on a trade or business. You may need items such as paper, envelopes, printer ink cartridges, staplers, breakroom supplies, binders, office chairs and more. Buy […]

Read More There is still time to make tax deductible purchases

The IRS has announced penalty relief for nearly 4.7 million individuals, businesses and tax-exempt organizations that weren’t sent automated tax collection reminder notices during the pandemic. It involves about $1 billion in penalty relief. The IRS suspended automated reminders to pay overdue 2020 and 2021 tax bills starting in Feb. 2022. Although reminder notices were […]

Read More IRS announces penalty relief

Businesses typically want to delay taxable income into future years and accelerate deductions into the current year. But in some cases, they want to do the opposite. One reason might be tax law changes that may raise future tax rates. Another reason may be because you expect your business to pay taxes at higher rates […]

Read More Accelerate or delay? That’s the question

The IRS is reminding certain people, age 73 and up, to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) by Dec. 31, to avoid penalties. RMDs are the amounts that many retirement plan and IRA owners must withdraw each year, from accounts including SIMPLE IRAs and SEPs (but not Roth IRAs during the owners’ lifetimes). RMDs are taxable […]

Read More RMDs are due by December 31