Must one spouse pay the tax resulting from a fabrication or omission by another spouse on a jointly filed tax return? It depends. If the spouse qualifies, he or she may be able to avoid personal tax liability under the “innocent spouse” rules. JOINT FILING STATUS Generally, married taxpayers benefit overall by filing a joint [...]
If your estate plan includes one or more trusts, review them before you file your tax return. Or, if you’ve already file it, look carefully at how your trusts were affected. Income taxes often take an unexpected bite out of these asset-protection vehicles. 3 WAYS TO SOFTEN THE BLOW For trusts, there are income thresholds [...]
If you generate income from a passion such as cooing, woodworking, raising animals – or anything else – beware of the tax implications. They’ll vary depending on whether the activity is treated as a hobby or a business. The bottom line: The income generated by your activity is taxable. But different rules apply to how [...]
April 15 Besides being the last day to file (or extend) you 2018 personal return and pay any tax that’s due, 2019 first quarter estimated tax payments for individuals, trusts and calendar-year corporations are due today. Also due are 2018 returns for trusts and calendar-year estates and C corporations, FinCEN Form 114 (“Report of Foreign [...]
Most individual don’t regard themselves as businesses, trying to turn a profit and beat the competition. But, occasionally, it may help to look at your financial situation this way to determine where you might cut expenses and boost cash flow. Here are some tips. LAY OUT YOUR FINANCIALS Where an executive might teach for financial [...]
Repairs to tangible property, such as buildings, machinery, equipment or vehicles, can provide businesses a valuable current tax deduction – as long as the so-called repairs weren’t actually “improvements.” The costs of incidental repairs and maintenance can be immediately expensed and deducted on the current year’s income tax return. But costs incurred to improve tangible [...]