Planning Article

January 2024 – By Bob Veres

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) Act passed in 2017, we were told that all of the provisions—lower tax rates, much more generous estate tax exemption—would sunset at the end of 2025.  That seemed a long way off back then.  But now it’s 2024, less than two years before what could be a jarring shift in our tax regime.  Soon, the top marginal tax rate is due to revert back to 39.6%.  The standard deduction will drop to roughly half of today’s $14,600 (single) or $29,200 (joint).  Most significantly, the estate tax exclusion—the amount that can be passed on to heirs without being taxed at the federal level—will drop from $13.61 million this year to somewhere around $6.5 million.

Market Minute

November 2023 – By Bob Veres

’Tis the season when many financial services professionals look at the best way to offset the taxable dividend distributions their clients might be receiving, using losses that can be ‘harvested’ by selling under-water investments and booking the losses on taxable (that is, not IRA or Roth) accounts.  This is not always a trivial exercise; a website called Capital Gains Valet reports that last year, 34 different mutual funds distributed more than 30% of their total value in the form of taxable distributions.

November 2021 – By Bob Veres

Advisors throughout the financial services industry, including financial planners, estate attorneys and tax consulting CPAs, are all nervously watching the tax proposals that are working their way through Congress.

September 2021 – By Bob Veres

Congress is getting ready to revise the U.S. tax code once again, and you can bet that the final version won’t be subtracting any pages from a document that now contains nearly 10,000 selections and two million words.  Over the past 10 years, alone, the tax code has been amended or revised over 4,000 times, with provisions covering pet moving expenses for people who lost their job, a deduction for clarinet lessons if it helps correct a child’s overbite, and a special carve-out for repairs for whaling boats—even though hunting whales is currently banned by the United States government.