Our weekly roundup of tax-related investment strategies and news your clients may be thinking about.
Processing Content
Trump-ian Tax Planning: A cheat sheet: Clients who are thinking of making tax-saving moves before the end of the year may want to wait to realize short-term gains since the incoming Trump administration intends to cut income tax rates, according to Barron's. Clients who want to realize long-term gains in 2017 should probably do the opposite and act before the new year. The new administration wants to lower the threshold for long-term capital gains taxed at 15 percent from $500,000 to $200,000. -- Barron's
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media in the lobby at Trump Tower in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. As Donald Trump prepares to assume the U.S. presidency, luxury towers from Istanbul to Manila that bear his name become de facto government symbols, making them potential terrorist targets. Experts say the question of how to protect them and who should pay poses a complex ethical and legal dilemma. Photographer: Albin Lohr-Jones/Pool via Bloomberg
Albin Lohr-Jones/Bloomberg
This year is ideal for beaten-stock strategy: Depreciated stocks that are sold by most of their shareholders for tax losses in the final weeks of the year are the ones that are likely to bounce back early next year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Historical data shows that stocks that have experienced the heftiest declines tend to recover the most when tax-loss selling activities wane in January. Identifying losing stocks that are candidates for a tax-loss-related rebound next year could be difficult, and one strategy to find a possible candidate is to enter buy orders on underpriced stocks that are being sold. -- The Wall Street Journal
The most-overlooked tax deductions: State sales taxes, out-of-pocket charitable deductions and student-loan interest deductions are among the many tax breaks that clients qualify for but fail to claim on their returns, according to Kiplinger. Some of the others? Job-hunting costs, work-related moving expenses, and baggage fees. -- Kiplinger
For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
A majority of accounting firms say they are changing their messaging around pricing as clients increasingly question their cost models in the age of AI efficiencies.
The Internal Revenue Service's efforts to leverage artificial intelligence are running into obstacles thanks to the severe cuts in staffing and budgets.
CPAs dealing with the new 1099-DA rules this year are challenged by the fact that they only report gross proceeds this year, leaving them and their clients to calculate cost basis themselves.
The Internal Revenue Service vastly overstated the projected costs of operating the free tax prep program before terminating it, according to a new report.
