Get ready to thank the IRS. With the relatively new tangible property regulations, you can write off replaced components and achieve two types of tax savings.

If you want to convert your home to a rental property, don’t. Instead, sell your home to your S corporation and then have the S corporation make the property a rental property. We have written about this previously, and we received some questions that we address in this article.

There is much you need to know when you shut down a partnership. In this article, we walk you through the tax consequences using the three most common partnership shutdown scenarios.

What happens when you sell stock or other assets at a loss to a related party, such as your daughter? This is a tax law you need to know about.

Do you co-own your business with one person or multiple people? If so, you should have a properly funded buy-sell agreement in place, as explained in this article.

Proposed IRS regulations scheduled to go into effect for the 2025 tax year will require people and companies that help customers transfer digital assets such as Bitcoin to file a new Form 1099-DA with the IRS. This form reports information similar to that reported for stock sales, such as sales proceeds, as well as (starting in 2026) tax basis and gains and losses. The new reporting rules will apply to digital asset trading platforms, payment processors, many wallet providers, and other “digital asset brokers.”

Download this two-page guide so you have a handy desktop reference for the 2024 corporate and individual tax rates, estate tax rates, self-employed tax rates, Social Security and Medicare tax rates, capital gains rates, standard mileage rates, standard deductions, luxury auto depreciation limits, and select retirement and IRA limits.

You need to think about the sale of your rental property when you claim depreciation on your qualified improvement property. Gains may be subject to higher-than-expected tax rates due to Section 1245 and 1250 ordinary income recapture and other factors. Planning your depreciation methods can significantly impact your current tax liabilities and long-term taxable gains when you sell.

You generally think of harvesting tax losses at the end of the year—and that’s a good year-end strategy. But the real deal is to harvest tax losses when they need harvesting. For example, you know you’ll need tax losses in 2024 to offset big gains. Harvest those losses when they’re available—say, in January or July 2024.

Learn how Revenue Ruling 74-175 can lead to improper application of the popular tax-planning statement “Don’t die with capital loss carryovers.” Learn how Revenue Ruling 74-175 can lead to improper application of the popular tax-planning statement “Don’t die with capital loss carryovers.”

Yes, December 31 is just around the corner. That’s your last day to find tax deductions available from your existing business and personal (yes, personal) vehicles that you can use to cut your 2023 taxes. In this article, you will learn how to find and release tax deductions that the tax code trapped inside your existing business cars, SUVs, trucks, and vans. And you will learn how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act makes it possible for you to find a big deduction from your existing personal vehicle (note the terms “existing” and “personal”).

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2023 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2023 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a useless $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that simultaneously (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction.

The initial good news is that your real estate portfolio can contain both investor and dealer properties. The additional good news is that you are in control, and by knowing just a few rules about dealer and investor classifications, you can do much to increase your net worth.

When does a rental property qualify as a good investment? The answer lies in your specific investment objectives. For instance, if your goal is to achieve an after-tax profit significantly higher than your safe rate of return, a rental property might be a great choice. How can you know this? You can make an informed projection by reading this article and utilizing the calculator provided.

If you have children under age 24, you likely need some knowledge about the kiddie tax, especially how to avoid it. In this article, you first get the nuts and bolts. Next, you get the planning strategies.

In this article you’ll find the basic tax results that occur when you shut down your C corporation.

NFTs—short for “non-fungible tokens”—are one of the hottest types of digital assets. Unlike Bitcoin, they are not digital currency. Instead, they represent ownership of virtual or physical assets. NFTs can be bought and sold on online platforms. Such sales result in ordinary income for NFT creators. Purchasers face the collectibles rules if the NFTs are collectibles and the owner can recognize capital gains or losses both on initial purchase and later sales.

If your securities trading activity can rise to that of a tax-favored trader, you can benefit in multiple ways as discussed in this article. For example, with the mark-to-market election, you can deduct your tax losses without running into the $3,000 ceiling.

You really should consider antiques when furnishing your offices or buying a unique second business vehicle. Unlike regular furnishings and vehicles, well-selected antiques increase in value. Also, you can depreciate or even Section 179 expense them. When you run the after-tax numbers, you can easily find that an antique will yield 36 times more after-tax cash than a non-antique.

Download this two-page guide so that you have a handy desktop reference for the 2023 corporate and individual tax rates, estate tax rates, self-employed tax rates, Social Security and Medicare tax rates, capital gains rates, standard mileage rates, standard deductions, luxury auto depreciation limits, and select retirement and IRA limits.

Short sales provide a path for underwater homeowners to get out of their mortgages without going through foreclosure. But mortgage debt forgiven following a short sale can be taxable income for the homeowner unless tax law provides a specific exception.

It’s been almost 15 years since cancellation of debt was a story above the fold. Should we dip into recession, you likely will see more stories about cancellation of debt. For federal income tax purposes, canceled debt is taxable—unless it meets one of the many possible exceptions, as explained in this article.

When you sell commercial or rental property, you can avoid paying capital gains tax by (1) completing a Section 1031 exchange for another replacement property, or (2) investing all or part of the gain in a qualified opportunity zone fund. Which is best for you depends on your specific goals.

If you need to make a required minimum distribution (RMD) from your IRA or other retirement account this year, doing an in-kind distribution enables you to avoid selling stocks or other securities in your account that have gone down in value over the past year. An in-kind RMD can also reduce taxes on future appreciation when you later sell the assets.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2022 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a useless $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that simultaneously (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction.

If you are thinking of getting married or divorced, you need to consider December 31, 2022, in your tax planning. Here’s a question: Do you give money to family or friends (other than your children who are subject to the kiddie tax)? If so, you need to consider the zero-taxes planning strategy. And now, consider your children who are under age 18. Have you paid them for work they’ve done for your business? Have you paid them the right way? You’ll find the answers here.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2022 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

The newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act expands and extends tax credits for installing solar panels, electric vehicle chargers, or other renewable energy systems in commercial buildings and residential rental property. It also increases the tax deduction for making commercial buildings more energy-efficient.

Some of the tax benefits of the federal qualified opportunity zone program have expired, but investing in qualified opportunity funds can still provide significant tax deferral and tax reduction for all types of capital gains.

Do you like the phrase “tax-free”? If so, spend some time with this article because it shows you 11 tax-free income breaks.

Seller-financed installment sales offer many benefits for the seller, including deferring taxes on the sales gain while allowing for top sales price and flexible terms. But this is tax law, and as you would expect, the IRS imposes a number of rules and restrictions on the installment method.

If you have self-employment income, you pay self-employment taxes (Social Security and Medicare taxes) on your net self-employment earnings. Not all income is self-employment income and some surprising types of income are considered self-employment income, as explained in this article.

All taxpayers must answer a question on Form 1040 about cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, it’s a trick question. You can engage in many types of crypto transactions without having to answer “yes” to the question. If you answered the question wrong, you don’t have to amend your return unless you failed to report crypto income.

If you own a second home and have both personal and rental use of that home, the tax code treats it as a tax-defined vacation home regardless of its location in the city or at the beach. Of course, you could use it solely or partly for business lodging and avoid the vacation home rules. With a second home, you have many tax strategies to consider.

Holding real estate in a self-directed IRA can help diversify your retirement investments, but it can come at a hefty price, including crippling prohibited transaction rules and the loss of valuable real estate tax deductions.

Buying real estate with a self-directed IRA may sound great, but it can be hard to get financing—and if you do finance the property, your IRA could be subject to unrelated business income taxes during its operations and at the time of sale. You also need cash reserves for operations and to pay out minimum distributions when you hit retirement age.

If you give money to your church and/or other 501(c)(3) organizations, you should consider establishing an account with a donor-advised fund to increase your tax benefit possibilities. It’s easy to do and gives you an immediate charitable deduction—even when you have the fund distribute the money years later.

If you earn profits from rental property and your income is high enough, you pay the 3.8 percent net investment income tax (think surtax on high income) unless you can qualify for one of three exemptions, as we explain in this article.

With today’s home prices and the crazy real estate market, it’s likely difficult for your children to buy a home. And it’s conceivable that you are ready to move on from your existing home. If this is true, this might be the right time to transfer your home to your child, as we explain in this article.

If you sell a home that you used for both personal and rental purposes, you are selling a tax-code-defined vacation home. Special rules apply to any gain or loss, as you will see in this article.

At first blush, our beloved Internal Revenue Code appears to throw cold water on the idea of holding physical precious metal assets in an IRA. But as you will learn in this article, the tax code contains exceptions and alternatives that allow you to invest your IRA money in precious metals, both directly and indirectly.

Download this two-page guide so that you have a handy desktop reference with the 2022 corporate and individual tax rates, estate tax rates, self-employed tax rates, Social Security and Medicare tax rates, capital gain rates, standard mileage rates, standard deductions, luxury auto depreciation limits, and select retirement and IRA limits.

When you think of the reverse mortgage, you may not think of using it as a tax planning tool. But as you learn in this article, the reverse mortgage can save you a boatload of taxes when used in the right circumstances.

This article answers two questions: First, if a married couple sells their home to their S corporation to be a rental property, can the owners be the renters? Second, where does the S corporation obtain S corporation basis in this transaction?

Learn how to use the S corporation to cut your taxes when you have appreciated land that you will develop and sell.

The tax code has rules that have changed over the years and that can affect how much you pay in taxes when you sell your principal residence. In this article, we focus on helping you with the least-known of these rules.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2021 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a useless $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2021 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Part 3 of our three-part refresher course on the principal residence gain exclusion break shows you what happens to the $250,000 ($500,000, if married) exclusion in the case of a divorce or marriage. In a divorce, good tax planning can be necessary if you’re going to retain the exclusion. You will also see what hurdles the government has put in place when you convert a vacation home or rental into your personal residence.

If you buy a property, fix it up, and then sell it, is that property a dealer or an investor property? The classification boils down to your facts and circumstances. That makes it a tough call for both you and your tax preparer. And if investor status produces long-term capital gains, you want to avoid dealer status, because that causes ordinary income and self-employment taxes.

Download this newly updated two-page guide so that you have a handy desktop reference with the 2021 corporate and individual tax rates, estate tax rates, self-employed tax rates, Social Security and Medicare tax rates, capital gain rates, standard mileage rates, standard deductions, luxury auto depreciation limits, and select retirement and IRA limits.

If you are an employee with company stock in your retirement plan, you can use the net unrealized appreciation tax treatment to save money on your taxes.

How would you like a capital loss storage box that you could call on when you have capital gains that you want eliminated? Your cryptocurrency holdings can create that capital loss storage box without changing the nature of your holdings, as we explain in this article.

The $250,000 ($500,000, if married) home sale gain exclusion break is one of the great tax-saving opportunities. Although the tax code contains many rules on this tax break, most of them are easily understood, especially as we explain them in this article.

If you are looking for a wild ride, examine cryptocurrency. Not only can it rise to $55,000 and then drop to $30,000 in a matter of weeks, but it can also trigger significant tax consequences. And now, the IRS wants to know about you and your cryptocurrency activities.

Download this two-page guide so that you have a handy desktop reference with the 2021 corporate and individual tax rates, estate tax rates, self-employed tax rates, Social Security and Medicare tax rates, capital gain rates, standard mileage rates, standard deductions, luxury auto depreciation limits, and select retirement and IRA limits.

If a loved one passes away and you serve as the executor or inherit assets, you need to consider your duties and/or tax planning. This is Part 1 in a three-part series where we consider your duties should you be the executor, along with planning to avoid the exorbitant tax rates that could apply to a living trust, special filing rules for the widow or widower, required minimum distributions, and more.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2020 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2020 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Learn how renting out your home while you take a two-month vacation interacts with your ability to use the $500,000 home-sale exclusion ($250,000 if single). Remember, you have to use the home as a home for two of the five years before sale to qualify for the home-sale exclusion.

The partnership choice of entity allows special allocations of income and expenses to individual partners, which can give the partnership a leg up as your possible choice of business entity. In this article, we explore the allocation rules and give you the ins and outs.

Download this two-page guide so that you have a handy desktop reference with the 2020 corporate and individual tax rates, estate tax rates, self-employed tax rates, Social Security and Medicare tax rates, capital gain rates, standard mileage rates, standard deductions, luxury auto depreciation limits, and select retirement and IRA limits.

When you receive restricted stock awards, you need to decide whether you want to make a Section 83(b) tax election. In this article, we explain the nuances to the Section 83(b) election.

With incentive stock options (ISOs), you could be on your way to a very nice payout. But you must consider both the regular federal income tax results and the alternative minimum tax results. In addition, you must pay attention to special rules that apply to so-called disqualifying dispositions of shares acquired by exercising ISOs. This sounds complicated, and it is a little, but we help you find clarity in this article.

Millions of people are buying and selling cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The IRS just issued new guidance for the first time in over five years on how you’ll treat cryptocurrency for tax purposes. We’ll tell you what the IRS had to say, what you need to do, and what we still don’t know.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) likely requires that you rethink the tax strategies you were using on your vacant land investments. And the TCJA changes may be such that you have to rethink vacant land as an investment, at least for the years impacted by the TCJA.

Yes, December 31 is just around the corner. That’s your last day to find tax deductions available from your existing business and personal (yes, personal) vehicles that you can use to cut your 2019 taxes. In this article, you will learn how to find and release tax deductions that the tax code trapped inside your existing business cars, SUVs, trucks, and vans. And you will learn how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act makes it possible for you to find a big deduction from your existing personal vehicle.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2019 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

The simple maneuver of converting your personal residence to a rental property brings with it myriad tax rules, mostly good when you know how they work. For example, your rental net income can create the Section 199A deduction if the rental rises to the level of a trade or business (most do).

Section 1202 allows you to sell a qualified small business corporation on a tax-free basis. Now, add to this no-tax-on-sale benefit from the 21 percent corporate tax rate from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and you have a significant tax planning opportunity.

You don’t often get the opportunity to even consider making a tax-saving double play. But your personal residence combined with a desire for a rental property can provide just such an opportunity, as you learn in this article.

Making loans to your corporation became more hazardous 33 years ago with the Tax Reform Act of 1986. That was pretty awful. But the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax reform made things worse for tax years 2018 through 2025. If you operate your business as a corporation, you need to know how the rules apply when you loan money to your corporation.

Your ownership of a pass-through trade or business can generate a tax deduction of up to 20 percent of your qualified business income (QBI). The C corporation does not generate this deduction, but the proprietorship, partnership, S corporation, and certain trusts, estates, and rental properties do. In this article, you learn how to find your QBI.

New tax code Section 199A can give you a tax deduction of up to 20 percent of your taxable income reduced by net capital gains. Last August, the IRS issued Section 199A proposed regulations that gave you some guidance on what net capital gains are. And now the new final regulations give you clarifying guidance on what the IRS deems are net capital gains for purposes of Section 199A.

Qualified opportunity funds are a new tax-planning strategy created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax reform. The new funds have the ability to defer current-year capital gains, eliminate some of them later, and then on the new investment make capital gains tax-free. To put the benefits in place, you need to navigate some new rules and time frames.

Your new (enhanced on May 16, 2019) 2019 desktop reference containing the 2019 capital gains and federal income tax rates for individuals, corporations, and estates and trusts, plus other desirable quick references you want at your fingertips, is now available with the download link in this article.

Yes, December 31 is just around the corner. That’s your last day to find tax deductions for your existing business vehicles that will cut your 2018 taxes. In this article, you will learn how to find and release tax deductions that the tax code trapped inside your existing business cars, SUVs, trucks, and vans.

Your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2018 income taxes when you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

If you are thinking of getting married or divorced, you need to consider December 31, 2018, in your tax planning. Here’s a planning question: Do you give money to family or friends (other than your children who are subject to the kiddie tax)? If so, you need to consider the zero-tax-bracket planning strategy. And now, consider your children who are under age 18. Have you paid them for work they’ve done for your business? Have you paid them the right way? You’ll find the answers here.

Starting now, this year (2018), you have to consider your Section 199A deduction in your year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review four year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

You’ve closed your S corporation and then paid expenses for it afterward. Can either you or the corporation deduct those expenses? We’ll explain what the law says, along with one thing to consider for taking deductions for your leftover expenses.

The first good news is that you can be both real estate investor and real estate dealer with respect to your real estate portfolio. The next good news is that you are in control, and by knowing just a few rules about dealer and investor classifications, you can do much to increase your net worth.

As you likely already know, your Section 199A deduction depends on where you fall in the qualification process. For example, one qualification process is income below the thresholds that qualify you for the Section 199A deduction on your pass-through income regardless of business type. Another process is income in the phase-in range that qualifies you for a phase-in deduction. Here we explain what that income is and how it impacts your new tax reform Section 199A deduction.

Tax reform changed the tax treatment of certain self-created intangible property. Does this affect goodwill? We’ll review the tax treatment of goodwill in light of tax reform.

The new 2018 Section 199A tax deduction that you can claim on your IRS Form 1040 is a big deal. There are many rules (all new, of course), but your odds as a business owner of benefiting from this new deduction are excellent.

If your pass-through business is an in-favor business and it qualifies for tax reform’s new 20 percent tax deduction on qualified business income, you benefit at all times, including being above, below, or in the expanded wage and property phase-in range. On the other hand, if your business is a specified service trade or business, it is in the out-of-favor group and you benefit only when you are in or below the phaseout range.

If you own rental properties, you don’t want the tax law to call the rentals an investment. Instead, you want the rental properties to qualify as a trade or business so that you achieve tax-favored Section 1231 treatment and many other tax breaks.

You really should consider antiques when furnishing your offices or buying a unique second business vehicle. Unlike regular furnishings and vehicles, well-selected antiques increase in value. Also, you can depreciate or even Section 179 expense them. When you run the after-tax numbers, you can easily find that an antique will yield 36 times more after-tax cash than a non-antique.

If you want to convert your home to a rental property, don’t. Instead, sell your home to your S corporation and then have the S corporation make the property a rental property. We have written about this previously, and we received some questions that we address in this article.

Suspended passive activity losses come about when the losses from all passive activities for the taxable year exceed the aggregate income from all passive activities for such year. These are losses above or beyond what you can deduct under the $25,000 offset for rental activities. When you sell your entire interest in a passive activity at a gain, you have a taxable gain and a jailbreak of those losses and maybe more.

Learn how this IRS revenue procedure allows you to avoid taxes on the sale of a personal residence in which you had a home office or that you used as a rental property. The procedure lays out the methodology, which includes using the $250,000 ($500,000 if married) home-sale exclusion in unison with a 1031 tax-deferred exchange to avoid the taxes and enhance your deductions on the replacement home.

More businesses are accepting bitcoins as payment. To the IRS, bitcoin is not the same as cash. You should know the tax implications of accepting bitcoins in your business and the major pros and cons of doing so.

When you are looking to buy a business and then operate that business as a C corporation, you should consider the tax benefits you can realize by creating debt as part of the corporate capital structure. If you do this, you need to put the debt in place so that the IRS will respect the debt as debt and not treat it as equity.

When you can buy the target’s stock and treat the deal as an asset purchase, you have a real possibility of bringing tax-benefit smiles to both you and the seller. So if you are buying a business, make sure you know when the tax rules allow you to buy the stock of the target and treat that stock purchase as the purchase of the target’s assets.

You’ve decided to create a partnership for a new or existing business. Good news: forming a business partnership is usually tax-free. But you must meet the basic requirements for a tax-free formation, and you need to avoid the situations that cause you to owe taxes on the transfer of property.

When you buy a business, you have much to consider. As you learned in prior articles, you need to consider the type of entity that owns the business and the type of entity you will use to operate the business. On top of that, every asset of the business you are going to buy impacts your tax results. In this article, you see how this all comes together and what you need to do to get the best results.

When you are buying a business, you want to buy not only at the right price, but also in a manner that keeps your taxes as low as possible. If you structure your deal as an asset purchase, you can use tax-smart price allocations that give the best tax result. And you likely want to include a stipulation in the purchase agreement that can reduce your chances of an IRS audit.

When buying a business, you face many decisions. One such decision is whether you should buy the assets of the business or the ownership interest. Here, you have both legal and tax issues to consider. Also, depending on the entity you are looking at buying, the ownership purchase option may not be available.

Your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2016 income taxes when you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game. The tax code contains basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

When it comes time to sell your business, it’s likely that you need to consider the intangible asset of goodwill. You have several things to consider, depending on the business entity you used to operate your business. For example, if you operated as a C corporation, how do you avoid double taxation on the goodwill? This article shows you how. Regardless of entity, how do you avoid the net investment income tax (NIIT)? This article shows you how.

You may have heard that options are the perfect way to increase profits on real estate investments and rentals. Well, perfect is probably an overstatement, but good profits are available when you know what you are doing. You also need to know the tax rules to avoid clauses, charges, and events that can turn options into sales and trigger taxes when you least expect them.

Whether you sell the assets of the business or your ownership interest, you can expect the buyer to check things out before signing off on the deal. This is called due diligence. And there are various aspects of due diligence, depending on the type of sale you are making and the buyer’s needs.

You have special tax-planning considerations when you sell a business that has zero-basis receivables and/or self-created goodwill. If you operate as a C corporation, you need additional planning because of double taxation. And the good news is that planning helps reduce the tax burden.

When you sell a business, you will likely sign a noncompete agreement, also known as a covenant not to compete. As the seller, the purchase price allocated to the noncompete does not produce the tax result you want. But the noncompete does do for the buyer what the buyer wants. Thus, you need to know how the noncompete works so you can negotiate the sale with knowledge.

Take advantage of the government’s tax-free $250,000 home-sale-profit exclusion ($500,000 if married) by selling your home to an S corporation that you establish. This gives you two things: (1) tax-free income and (2) a step-up in basis for the rental house.

When you sell a business, you and the buyer may structure a contingency that can vary the selling price. The tax code gives you three basic reporting possibilities for contingent prices, and, of course, the three possibilities give you planning opportunities.

The tax implications for your office building and rentals have changed. Now when you fix up and improve those buildings, you need to be alert to additional savings that were not available in some prior years. Further, if you are buying a new building, you absolutely need to examine how you can create deductions where none existed before.

You likely feel some pain when you lose a rental property to foreclosure. And if you have the mortgage structured wrong, tax law adds to whatever pain you experienced with the lender. But in the right circumstances, you can lose your rental property to foreclosure and save money, too.

Get ready to thank the IRS. With the new tangible property regulations you can write off replaced components and achieve two types of tax savings. Before the new regulations, if you replaced a roof, you likely continued to depreciate the old roof and also depreciated the new roof. The old roof—the ghost roof—usually triggered additional recapture taxes. You are going to like the new rules, especially the two new types of tax savings.

If you are selling your S or C corporation, you have plenty to think about. And of course, the buyer has much to think about too. By using an election in the tax code, you and the buyer can get on the same page so you can sell with one level of taxation and also give the buyer what the buyer wants most—a step-up in basis of the assets acquired.

Few things can rock your world like the prospect of losing your home. In a foreclosure, the lender sends you one or two Form 1099s that will worry you too. The 1099s could show that you have cancellation of debt income (that’s taxable income). And then, just to pile on, the foreclosure that took away your home might trigger a taxable gain. That’s all bad news. But when you know the rules, you’ll see that you can make some or all of the bad-news tax problems go away.

When you sell your business, you face two types of federal income taxes: (a) regular and (b) capital gains. Capital gains are better—much better. If you sell the assets rather than the business interest, your sale of self-created intangibles likely produces capital gains. Of course, the best bet is to sell the business interests rather than the assets, assuming you operate as other than a proprietorship, which can sell assets only.

If you are thinking of getting married or divorced, you need to consider December 31, 2015, in your tax planning. Here’s another planning question: Do you give money to family or friends (other than your children who are under age 24)? If so, you need to consider the zero-bracket planning strategy. And now let’s consider your children who are under age 18. Have you paid them for work they’ve done for your business? Have you paid them the right way? You’ll find the answers here.

Your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2015 income taxes when you take advantage of the Tax Code’s offset game. The Tax Code contains basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Tax law places your collectible activity in one of four tax categories: (1) hobby, (2) investment, (3) trader, or (4) dealer. This means your collectible activity can, depending on category, trigger the AMT, capital gains, and self-employment taxes. When you know the rules that place you in these categories, you can make adjustments. Sometimes the adjustments are easy; at other times, they require rethinking the collectibles activity.

If you are selling a rental property or your home, you should consider seller financing as a possible method to achieving a rate of return better than you are receiving from your current investments. This article gives you six ways to improve the structure of your seller financing so you can pocket more cash.

If you want to convert your C corporation to an S corporation, you need a plan. No plan, BIG tax. The BIG tax means the tax on built-in gains at 35 percent. But it’s worse than that, and bigger than that, because after the 35 percent tax payment, you continue to pay at your regular tax rates on the remaining 65 percent that flows from your S corporation to you. This is torturous double taxation. So make a plan to avoid as much torture as possible, perhaps all of it. This article helps you with that plan by showing you four strategies that you can use.

You need to know a number of tax rules when it comes to selling your business. For example, you likely want tax-favored capital gains, but your buyer may not like that idea, as it cuts into the buyer’s tax deductions. This article is the first in a series of articles on selling your business, and it will help you understand how this process is going to work.

If you own a corporation, you need to plan in advance for the eventual sale or liquidation of your corporation—even if you do not expect either to happen anytime soon. In particular, the planning you do regarding your business goodwill could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax savings.

2015 is the first year that stockowners can sell their C corporation stock completely tax free under Section 1202 of the tax code. If you started a C corporation or purchased stock recently and you qualify for this rule, you need to determine the date you acquired the stock and wait five years before you sell. This waiting period could save you thousands and even potentially millions of dollars in taxes.

If you own stock, you can take action now to escape the tax that you will incur when you ultimately decide to sell. By strategically timing sale and repurchase transactions, you can take advantage of the zero percent bracket for capital gains and gradually eliminate most or all of your tax before you ultimately dispose of the stock.

Your stock market portfolio is a great place to look for year-end tax planning opportunities. First, it’s a place where you can avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children. Second, it’s a place where you can play a simple game of offset where you cancel out high taxes. This article gives you seven strategies that reduce your taxes and make you smile.

If you invest in gold, stamps, or antiques but you don’t know the tax rules governing collectors, you’re probably falling into costly tax traps that you could easily avoid with tax knowledge. When you put yourself in position to improve your tax situation, you put more money in your pocket (which gives you more money to build your collection). Read this article to discover how you can deduct your collection expenses and also minimize your taxes when you sell your items for a profit.

If you buy a property, fix it up, and then sell it, is that property a dealer or an investor property? The classification boils down to your facts and circumstances. That makes it a tough call for both you and your tax preparer. And if investor status produces long-term capital gains, you want to avoid dealer status, because that causes ordinary income and self-employment taxes.

If you are looking for creative ways to get rid of a house that won’t sell, consider the lease-option. This strategy only works with the right tenant and your correct use. But get this right and it’s a nice deal for everyone involved. Make sure you avoid the traps that blow up the deal and add extra taxes to your tax bill. After all, your real purpose with the lease-option is to increase your cash flow and keep your taxes to a minimum.

You may not expect to sell your current home or vacation property any time soon, but you should take these (easy) steps right now to prepare for—or better yet, avoid—the tax burden when that day ultimately comes. If you plan to rely on the home sale gain exclusion to shield all of your profit, don’t do that. We’ll tell you why not in this article. We’ll also show you how certain records can substantially reduce the taxes you owe on the sale of your home.

Tax law grants depreciation deductions. That’s good. It then recaptures or otherwise taxes the deductions you claimed. That’s bad. Don’t let depreciation and Section 179 deductions hoodwink you. Because of the back-end tax, the deductions amount to less than they appear on the surface. This means tax planning is in order if you are to pocket more tax money. This article helps you with that tax plan so that you get more out of your depreciation and Section 179 deductions.

Corporate advances are a nice way to get around the double tax problem of C corporations. But there is a hidden danger. If you take a loan from your corporation without taking all the right steps, then you are asking the IRS to apply its double-tax system (plus penalties). Read this article to learn the right way to take your corporate advances.

When you buy a business, buy the assets—not the stock. The assets will significantly increase your tax savings in the early years of your new business. This article gives you the nuts and bolts of buying a business. It even explains how you can buy the stock of the target corporation and treat the stock purchase as an asset purchase.

You can achieve year-end tax benefits by offsetting your stock market gains and losses in the right way. You also can make a gift of appreciated stock to charity, which will increase your tax benefits over what you would achieve with a cash gift. Be careful here though, as a gift of depreciated (versus appreciated) stock to a charity decreases your charitable deductions, costs you cash, and makes you unhappy when you find out what you’ve done.

Are you thinking of converting your C corporation to an S corporation? If so, you need to examine how the built-in gains tax can create trouble for you. Of course, once you know some of the trouble, you can find ways to mitigate it, and if you are patient, you can totally avoid it.

You might simply file a form to convert your business from a corporation to a sole proprietorship, but this simplicity can trigger unexpected taxes galore. Don’t let the taxes surprise you. Evaluate the tax costs. See if the conversion works to your best financial advantage. Also, make sure to examine tax law’s three special tax-benefit techniques available to small-business owners.

How would you like to buy a small business, sell it at a huge profit, and defer the taxes as if you had completed a tax-deferred exchange? You can. It’s not a Section 1031 exchange. But it can give you the same exact tax deferral that you can achieve with a Section 1031 exchange. You find this great benefit in Section 1045 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Antique desks, clocks, cabinets, bookcases, rugs, conference tables, paperweights, and even cars can add character and beauty to an office. Antiques also make a great investment because they appreciate in value. And here’s one more neat thing about antiques: you can expense them under Section 179 of the tax code if you (1) actually use them to conduct business; and (2) such use causes wear and tear to the antique.

If you own rental properties, enjoy being in that business, and want to grow that rental property business, you need to know the ins and outs of the Section 1031 exchange. The word “exchange” is misleading; what you really do in a 1031 is sell an existing property and then buy a new property, but you do this using an exchange intermediary. It’s easy and the intermediary is not expensive. In this article you will learn how to avoid Mr. Adams’s fate as we follow him to court with an exchange that involved a rental to his son that raised issues with the IRS.

The fiscal cliff is coming on December 31 unless lawmakers do something. What does that mean to you? Does it mean you should pay more taxes this year? Perhaps. For insights into what you need to consider, read this article.

How does the tax law treat the classic car when you use it for business? Can you deduct it just as you would any car you use in business? Learn how some tax law changes enabled the classic car as a business asset and why that can work to your advantage.

Should you get married or divorced before December 31, 2012? What about your children—do you have them on the payroll? And what about the cash gifts you have been giving to your favorite aunt to help her in her later years—are you doing this gift the best way? You’ll find the answers to these questions in this article.

Are thinking about harvesting your tax losses? You should be. Leaving tax-deductible losses on the table at the end of the year is very disappointing. And then there’s the stock gift to charity. Are you doing these correctly so as to maximize your tax benefits? Make sure by reading this article now.

Do you invest in real estate? Are you an investor or a dealer? Make sure you put the nine factors to work for you in your proof of investor or dealer status.

Although you might have thought you converted an asset from business to personal use, you did not. You now simply use the asset for personal use and that changes your business/personal mix. The business asset retains its business attributes and that means gain, loss, and recapture at the time of ultimate disposal.

When it comes time to remove yourself from your business, what’s your plan? This article gives you one maneuver to consider if you operate your business as a corporation. It’s called the stock redemption, and this article shows how a father used the redemption to transfer ownership to his children in a tax-friendly manner. The principles in this article can also be used to transfer ownership to business associates, employees, and other shareholders

The days when you could convert your rental property or vacation home to a principal residence and then use the full $250,000/$500,000 home-sale exclusion to avoid taxes are gone. Today’s law requires an allocation that keeps part of your rental as a rental so you have to pay taxes on that allocated part.

The home-office deduction lives in the world of false myths. One such myth is depreciation recapture. In most cases, the benefits of depreciation deductions far outweigh the recapture. Further, with a little planning, you can easily defer and even avoid the recapture tax altogether.

Learn how this IRS Revenue Procedure allows you to avoid taxes on the sale of a personal residence in which you had a home office or that you used as a rental property. The procedure lays out the methodology, which includes using the $250,000 ($500,000 if married) home-sale exclusion in unison with a 1031 tax-deferred exchange to avoid the taxes and enhance your deductions on the replacement home.

You likely hate tax-law surprises. Foreclosures, short sales, and mortgage modifications can both reward and punish you, sometimes during the same transaction. You may not have a problem with your home’s value or its mortgage, but you may have a relative, friend, or client who faces this situation. If so, you may want to know how tax law treats the principal residence foreclosure, short sale, or loan modification.

If you own rental properties, you need to know how to qualify for real estate professional status, and then you need to create proof of time spent on your rentals. No time-spent proof, no passive-loss deductions. Next, you have to decide to group or not to group your properties. Don’t leave this grouping decision to the IRS or to the courts.

On your rental properties, you need proof of your cost allocation to land and depreciable buildings. If you have no proof of that allocation, the IRS has started using the Web to grab the tax assessor’s allocation and use that against your depreciation deductions.

Keeping your home until death has advantages. At death, your estate avoids both capital gains and recapture taxes, and passes the home to your heirs at a stepped-up fair market value basis. This combination triggers a good number of income tax planning strategies.

Are you looking for more tax deductions this year? It’s not too late. Learn 12 last-minute tax-planning ideas that you can implement to create or push more deductions into this year so you can pay less in taxes this year.

Do you claim a home-office deduction? Do you have a garage (attached or detached) at your home? If so, you need to spend a few minutes with this article. You will learn when to include and exclude the garage when calculating your home-office space.

The taxpayer in this case made three major mistakes, one of which was the probable cause of his IRS audit. His assertion of being an investor and not a dealer defied most of the nine factors the courts use in deciding the dealer versus investor question.

The newly enacted tax cut creates a new 2011 and 2012 estate tax. The new rules are taxpayer friendly in two respects. First, they are easy to understand. Second, they contain a $5 million exclusion (portable, if properly elected, for husband and wife, giving a married couple an exclusion of $10 million).

Tax law gives choices to the executors who are handling the estates of those who died in 2010. Choice one is to apply the 2010 rules. Choice two is to apply the newly enacted 2011 and 2012 estate tax rules.

The repair deduction can substantially outperform the capitalized improvement. The added cash comes from two sources.

Tax law penalizes depreciation deductions, whereas it rewards repair deductions. The impact on your net worth can be huge. This article helps you qualify for the repair deductions that increase your net worth.

Spend a few minutes looking at the list in this article to see what qualifies as a repair. Then spend another minute on the list of improvements. This will help you decide what you need to do to your property.

Repairs to property produce more after-tax cash than improvements do. If you invest in property, you should pay close attention to the rules on what is a repair versus what is an improvement.

This issue contains 21 last-minute tax tips that you can use for 2010. We broke the tips into two articles: one for vehicles and one not related to vehicles. This article contains 12 last-minute tax tips that are not related to vehicles.

The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 spends $12 billion on small businesses, hoping to add a little stimulus to this economy. Make sure you are getting your fair share of this stimulation.

This article contains our Rental Property Analyzer software to help you analyze your possible real estate investments in an absolutely understandable and meaningful way. If you are thinking of buying a rental property, you absolutely, positively must read this article and use this software, which is included in your subscription.

Learn how you treat monies spent when your attempted purchase of a rental property fails. Tax law provides you with a path of special, mostly favorable tax rules.

Tax law allows an individual to be a real estate dealer with respect to his dealer properties and a real estate investor with respect to his investor properties.

The first good news is that you can be both real estate investor and real estate dealer with respect to your real estate portfolio. The next good news is that you are in control, and by knowing just a few rules about dealer and investor classification, you can do much to increase your net worth.

If you own rental properties, you don’t want the tax law to call the rentals an investment. Instead, you want the rental properties to qualify as a trade or business so that you achieve tax favored Section 1231 treatment and other tax breaks.

Section 1031 exchanges are perfect when you are going to stay in the real estate rental or investment business. When it’s time to cash out, you need to look at different strategies that help you avoid taxes and give you cash to spend (liquidy).

Section 1237 grants a safe-harbor to qualified taxpayers who want to subdivide land. The safe-harbor requires the taxpayer to pass seven tests, but then rewards the taxpayer with tax-favored capital gains treatment (versus ordinary income treatment).

Good tax planning can avoid ordinary income treatment on the subdivision of land. The planning involves avoiding the partnership entity and using an S corp. for development.

The business bad debt generates the best bad debt tax breaks, except when the debt is incurred to protect, enhance, or continue your employee relationship (i.e, keep the corporation in business so you have a place to work).

If you understate your gross income by more than 25 percent, the IRS can adjust that return for six years, rather than the traditional three-year statutory period for audits. In this clarifying regulation, the IRS explains that an overstatement of basis counts as an understatement of gross income for the 25 percent test.

Distributing the assets of an estate needs a tax plan to ensure the favorable results embedded in the tax law.

The U.S. government taxes your profits and subsidizes your losses. That’s nice. Not all governments share in the losses.

You can be a dealer with respect to some properties and an investor with respect to others. You can also subdivide lots and obtain tax-favored capital gain treatment, but you need the right numbers and a good plan.

Do you own an asset whose sale will produce a capital gain to you? Are you going to take back a note for some of the sales proceeds? If so, consider the “imputed interest” rules as a net-worth building opportunity. You can get up to 57 percent reduction in your tax bite, without changing the buyer’s out-of-pocket spending.

At what point is a home destroyed so that it is eligible for the “involuntary conversion rules and the $250,000 ($500,000) exclusion of capital gains rules? In this chief counsel advice, the IRS gives some clarity.

As a person who buys and sells stocks, you will see a huge difference in how the law treats you if you’re a dealer, trader, or investor.

Dealer versus investor tax status is a heavily litigated issue. Choosing between dealer or investor status is often a tough call, as is in the case of this taxpayer. There can be a huge tax difference between classification as a dealer or classification as an investor.

When planning your taxes, always consider the AMT. This creepy tax seems to come out of the woodwork and attack when you least expect it. For example, in 2002, Kevin Moore sold his farm, and, because of a tax law error, he owed AMT. Had he sold in 2004, after tax writers fixed the glitch, he would have had no AMT.

If you sell stock to your relatives at a loss, don’t lose possible deductions – know the related party rules!

Shahrooz Jamie, a physician in West Virginia, had a side-business as a trader of securities. In his court case, he tried defending his net operating loss carryovers to offset the net income from his medical practice. The court ruled against him, imposing substantial overstatement penalties.

The $250,000 exclusion on the sale of this home is complicated by the mother and daughter owning this home together.

Taxpayer sells this rental property for $199,000 with $6,000 in closing costs. He paid $118,500 for the property over 10 years ago and has claimed $50,000 in depreciation deductions. As part of this sale, the taxpayer takes back a second mortgage in the amount of $19,400 payable in five years with interest paid annually at 10 percent a year. There are five easy steps to this installment sales tax calculation.

How you depreciate property has significant effects on your after-tax cash realization. Further, the punitive effects of depreciation recapture taxes make the Section 1031 exchange possibilities more and more appealing. That’s why it is important to remember the eight financial planning principles about depreciation.

The AMT can trigger additional taxes on your capital gains despite the fact that the capital gains tax rate for both regular and AMT purposes is identical. Your status as single or married and the amount and nature of your income determine the extra AMT hit. In general, the middle income can suffer the worst AMT impact.

When you have your corporation reimburse your home office as an employee business expense, you treat the home as if you had claimed the office-in-the-home deduction personally.

Wow! In one day, the IRS released three private letter rulings that provide a roadmap to the $250,000 (single) and $500,000 (married) home-sale profit exclusions for taxpayers who fail, because of hardship, the 2-out-of-5-year tests for ownership and use.

Historic rehab tax credits can put you in Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed favorite spot. Tax credits often exceed the cash you invest in the project making the historic rental or office building a “nothing down” deal for you. Add nonrecourse financing to the package and you have no personal risk. None of your cash in the deal and no personal risk—this is Mr. Trump’s favorite spot. You might do as many Congressional leaders do: Donate your personal home’s historic facade to charity so can realize big tax credits.

The couple in this court case did not keep the right records to prove the improvements they made to their home. This failure to keep the records probably saved them some personal time, but it cost them taxes on $101,907 of capital gains. What do you suppose the hourly cost of this failure—considering that the time spent to keep these records has to be very few hours? You really do need the right tax records and it takes very little time when you know what to keep.