It is no secret that the IRS wants you to report your crypto gains. You can report crypto losses too, but the IRS cares less about that. The government still seems to think millions of transactions and dollars might still be unreported. You might think you won’t be caught, but the risks are growing. The
Taxes
In a recent case, a bankruptcy court had to consider whether to allow a debtor in a Chapter 13 plan to make voluntary contributions to her retirement plan. This is an interesting and important issue, particularly for retirement planning and retirement preparedness. Indeed, saving in an employer-sponsored retirement plan with its attendant benefits—such as employer-matching
If your uncle, best friend or bank loans you money, is it taxable? Nope, not if it’s a real loan. But the loan or income distinction lands many people in trouble with the IRS. Besides, interest rates on risky loans like litigation funding and pre-IPO stock are high, and you might not be able to
When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) was passed in December 2017, many residents on the east and west coast felt like they heard fingernails scrapping against a chalkboard. It officially become federal law that the maximum amount of state and local taxes (“SALT”) that could be included as a federal itemized deduction, and thereby
The White House will release a $6 trillion budget plan amid complaints from the GOP about wasteful spending and ruinous debt, but their guy also added to the national debt big-time. As President Joe Biden releases his first detailed spending plan later today and continues to push for trillions in infrastructure spending, Republicans are amping
Today’s column addresses questions about whether and when Social Security will fix problems with benefit calculation for those born in 1960, effects of the earnings test on survivor’s benefits and qualifying for divorced spousal benefits. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc,
President Biden’s campaign promise never to raise taxes on those making $400,000 or less annually will inevitably conflict with his proposal to tax unrealized capital gains at death. My TPC colleague Rob McClelland and I estimate Biden’s new capital gains tax could exempt about 98 percent of decedents who made $400,000 or less, but about
The American Rescue Plan’s $350 billion in direct funding for state and local governments came with a caveat: Governments are not allowed to use that free money to pay for tax cuts. That had a lot of Republicans up in arms, claiming that President Biden had banned states outright from passing tax cuts. That’s not
All the evidence isn’t in, but it’s clear that many Americans accelerated their retirement plans during the pandemic and the rush to retire probably isn’t over. In September 2020, about 3.2 million more baby boomers were retired than a year earlier, according to a Pew Research Center report. In each of the previous four years,
Tax bills almost always force Congress to think about how to define income, but President Biden’s campaign promise to never raise taxes for those making $400,000 or less puts the question front-and-center. If you are not a tax geek, you might be surprised to know there are many definitions of income. Some are used to