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Our client portal will be unavailable from 9PM MST, April 26 until 9PM MST April 28th due to a scheduled maintenance.
Office alert – Friday March 15th, 2024.
Due to the road conditions, majority of our staff will be working remotely today.
We want you to be safe, we have a drop off at COS on 3rd floor. If you are planning to come by the Denver and Springs office please make contact with your SKR contact first.
Our client portal will be unavailable from 9PM MST, April 26 until 9PM MST April 28th due to a scheduled maintenance.
Office alert – Friday March 15th, 2024.
Due to the road conditions, majority of our staff will be working remotely today.
We want you to be safe, we have a drop off at COS on 3rd floor. If you are planning to come by the Denver and Springs office please make contact with your SKR contact first.
Year-end tax planning will be just as complicated as it was last year due to the complexity of new tax regulations for businesses and individuals. This is of the essence as tax planning strategies to reduce your 2019 tax bill must be taken before year end.
Take advantage of planning strategies for individuals
Individuals often can reduce their tax bills by deferring income to the next year and accelerating deductible expenses into the current year. To defer income, for example, you might ask your employer to pay your year-end bonus in early 2020 rather than in 2019.
To accelerate deductions, consider increasing your IRA or qualified retirement plan contributions to the extent that they’ll be deductible. Such contributions also provide some planning flexibility because you can make 2019 contributions to IRAs, and certain other retirement plans, after the end of the year.
Other year-end tax planning strategies to consider include:
Offsetting capital gains. If you sold stocks or other investments at a gain this year — or plan to do so — consider offsetting those gains by selling some poorly performing investments at a loss.
Reducing capital gains is particularly important if you are subject to the net investment income tax (NIIT), which applies to taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) over $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples filing jointly). The NIIT is an additional 3.8% tax on the lesser of 1) your net income from capital gains, dividends, taxable interest and certain other sources, or 2) the amount by which your MAGI exceeds the threshold.
In addition to reducing your net investment income by generating capital losses, you may have opportunities to bring your MAGI below the applicable NIIT threshold by deferring income or accelerating certain deductions.
Charitable giving. If you plan to make charitable donations, consider donating highly appreciated stock or other assets rather than cash. This strategy is particularly effective if you own appreciated stock you would like to sell but you don’t have any losses to offset the gains.
Donating stock to charity allows you to dispose of the stock without triggering capital gains taxes, while still claiming a charitable deduction. Then you can take the cash you’d planned to donate and reinvest it in other securities.
Contact your trusted advisor to discuss end of year planning for you and your business.
Starting early on your 2018 tax planning is especially critical this year, as tax reform has substantially changed the tax environment. Tax planning helps determine the total impact new laws may have on your particular scenario and identifies proactive tax strategies that make sense for you this year, such as the best way to time income and expenses. From this analysis, you may decide to deviate from tax approaches that worked for you in previous years and implement a new game plan.
Many variables
A tremendous number of variables affect your overall tax liability for the year. For example, the timing of income and deductible expenses can affect both the rate you pay and when you pay. By reviewing your year-to-date income, expenses and potential tax, you may be able to time income and expenses in a way that reduces, or at least defers, your tax liability.
Act now
Under the TCJA tax reform legislation, most of the provisions affecting individuals are in effect for 2018–2025 and additional major tax law changes are not expected in 2018.
Starting sooner will help prevent you from making costly assumptions under the new tax regime. It will also allow you to take full advantage of new tax-saving opportunities.
A large number of variables affect your overall tax liability for the year. It is especially critical this year because tax reform has substantially changed the tax environment. Planning early in the year can give you more opportunities to reduce your 2018 tax bill.
If you own a business, this is particularly important for the new qualified business income (QBI). New strategies are available to help you time income and expenses to minimize tax liability.
Now and throughout the year, seek your business adviser to help you determine how tax reform affects you and what strategies you should implement to minimize your tax liability.
Individual taxpayers who have come close to triggering the alternative minimum tax (AMT) in the past should start planning to minimize 2016 taxes as early as possible. This article will define AMT, how it is calculated, and ways to minimize your AMT liability.
The AMT – a separate tax system that doesn’t allow certain deductions and income exclusions – initially was put in place to prevent wealthy Americans from taking so many tax breaks that they eliminated their tax liability. But even taxpayers who don’t normally consider themselves “upper income” can trigger the AMT. For example, you could be vulnerable if you exercised incentive stock options this year.
AMT calculations can be complicated, but the system basically has two tax rates (26% and 28%) and inflation-adjusted income thresholds for them. An exemption is also available, but it phases out based on income. For 2016, the AMT exemptions are $53,900 for single filers and heads of households and $83,800 for joint filers. The phase-out ranges are $119,700 to $332,100 for single filers and heads of households and $159,700 to $493,300 for joint filers. If AMT income is within the applicable range, a partial exemption is available; if it exceeds the top of the range, no exemption is available.
To determine whether you owe the AMT, you’ll need to calculate your tax under both the regular and AMT systems. If your AMT liability is greater than your regular income tax liability, you must pay the difference as AMT, in addition to the regular tax. The federal AMT rate is 28%, compared to the top regular income tax rate of 39.6 %.
Under the AMT, you can’t take a personal exemption for yourself and your dependents. And you are not allowed to deduct such items as home equity debt interest not used to improve your home; state and local income and property taxes; and miscellaneous itemized deductions subject to the 2% floor.
Those with high incomes are more susceptible to the AMT than others, but AMT liability may also be triggered by:
Fortunately, strategies exist for minimizing your AMT. For example, you might want to delay sales of highly appreciated assets until the next year or use an installment sale to spread the gains over multiple years. You can also try to time the payment of state and local taxes and other miscellaneous itemized deductions for years that you do not expect the AMT to apply. Or you might want to recognize additional income this year to take advantage of the AMT’s lower maximum rate (28% vs. 39.6%).
There is also an AMT credit. If you pay the AMT in one year on deferral items (those that affect more than one tax year, such as depreciation) you might be entitled to a credit for a subsequent year. The credit, however, might provide only partial relief or take years before you can fully use it. Nonetheless, the AMT credit’s refundable feature can reduce the time it takes to recoup AMT payments.
Most taxpayers do not even realize that the AMT is looming until it’s too late to do anything to manage it. Failing to pay the AMT can lead to penalties and interest, so it’s best to determine ahead of time whether it will apply. Talk to your tax advisor now while you still have time to strategize for 2016.