Voices

Charting the Fiscal Cliff

Financial advisor Leon LaBrecque and his team at LJPR LLC have created a helpful chart to help people get a better understanding of the so-called fiscal cliff.

Washington has become increasingly consumed with the fiscal cliff as the deadline moves closer to the end of the year. The cliff involves the expiration of the current tax rates, along with deep spending cuts that will be required in both defense and domestic programs by the federal government. Combine that with the end of federal unemployment insurance for millions of Americans, the expiration of a host of tax cuts including the payroll tax cut, the still unpatched alternative minimum tax, and the need to soon lift the debt ceiling, Washington has a pretty full plate these days.

LaBrecque, a CPA, CFP and CFA who is managing partner and chief strategist at LJPR, which manages over $470 million in assets, hopes the chart will make the fiscal cliff easier to grasp. His firm handles financial planning, estate planning, business and tax planning for individual and business clients, and he formerly worked at Arthur Andersen and Plante & Moran, as well as the University of Detroit.

“We have created a chart to gauge the overall potential effects of the looming cliff,” he said. “This chart focuses on the magnitude of each component of the cliff, danger zones, who is impacted—and to what extent—as well as likely fixes and the probability of those fixes actually taking place. We believe this chart is far-reaching and a valuable resource to most individuals, directly addressing the biggest tax increase/spending cut in history.”

LaBrecque has been studying the problem for some time and produced a white paper on the subject over a year ago.

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