With the holidays and year-end approaching, you might be considering making gifts of stock or cash to family members and loved ones. By using your annual exclusion, those gifts-within generous limits-can reduce the size of your taxable estate. For 2022, the annual gift exclusion is $16,000. This covers gifts you make to each recipient [...]
October 17 Personal federal income tax returns for 2021 that received an automatic extension must be filed today and any tax interest and penalties due must be paid. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Form 114 “Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts” (also known as the “FBAR”) must be filed by today, if not [...]
If you’re fortunate enough to own a vacation home, you may want to rent it out when you’re not using it. But how might that affect your taxes? The answer lies in keeping good records. Before you post the “for rent” sign, consider how many days you, your relatives (even if they pay market rent) [...]
If you’re planning to sell capital assets at a loss to offset gains you realized during the year, beware of the “wash sale” rule. Under this tax rule, selling stock or securities for a loss and buying back substantially identical stock shares or securities within 30 days before or after the sale date means the [...]
A check kiting scheme relies on “float” time, which is the period between when a check is deposited and when the bank collects the funds on the check. Some banks accept check deposits and release funds immediately, in the interest of good customer service. That’s similar to providing accountholders with interest-free loans. In recent years, [...]
Have You Explored QuickBooks' Insights and Snapshots Pages? QuickBooks is good at finding information quickly. The software’s Insights and Snapshots pages can provide fast, thorough overviews of your finances. There’s more than one way to get where you’re going in QuickBooks. The software was designed to make similar information available by taking multiple paths. This [...]