Financial Planning

The Internal Revenue Service has published final regulations to provide guidance on which costs incurred by estates or trusts other than grantor trusts are subject to a 2 percent floor for miscellaneous itemized deductions.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations clarifying the rules regarding the tax treatment of payments by qualified retirement plans for accident or health insurance.

Paid-for stock research has generally elicited widespread skepticism, but a new scholarly paper by three accounting professors suggests that paid-for analysts are more like auditors and credit-rating firms than is generally believed.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a revenue procedure and notice to provide temporary penalty relief to plan administrators who don’t file their Form 5500 or 5500 EZ forms on time.

Congressmen Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Scott Peters, D-Calif., along with 21 other House Democrats, have introduced legislation to lower all federal student loans to 4 percent and allow borrowers to refinance their student loans at a lower rate.

Premature withdrawals from retirement accounts have become America’s new piggy bank, cracked open in record amounts during lean times by people like Cindy Cromie, who needed the money to rent a U-Haul and start a new life.

Consulting may be an attractive career move for CFOs who may not be ready to stop working when they retire, according to a new poll.

Remember -- it's all about them, not you.

We're dedicating this column to tax alpha because accountants who are financial planners are uniquely positioned to deliver it. But just what, you may ask, is "tax alpha"? If "alpha" is the return generated by an advisor's skill in picking and managing investments, then "tax alpha" protects that return and generates a boost by making sure that taxes don't eat away more of a client's wealth than absolutely necessary.

The Internal Revenue Service plans to amend the regulations for the treatment of U.S. taxpayers who own passive foreign investment company stock through tax-exempt organizations.