Tax breaks

Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing hiking taxes on executive retirement plans and using the extra revenue to aid struggling worker pension plans.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department released guidance Friday to help farmers deal with a provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and reduce their taxes by leveraging a tax break for small businesses.

It’s been two years since investors were able to claim tax write-offs for investment costs and advice, but lawyers have found a potential workaround hidden in years-old IRS regulations and case law that may cut tax bills for some private equity and hedge fund investors.

The controversy keeps mounting over a new tax break for investing in poor U.S. communities. But investors keep piling in.

Home values in areas designated as “opportunity zones” appear to have been affected so little it’s “statistically indistinct from zero,” according to new research.

U.S. lawmakers led by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley are negotiating a potential revival of expired tax breaks in last-minute negotiations over a government spending bill.

Once heralded as a novel way to help distressed parts of the U.S., opportunity zones are now being slammed as a government boondoggle.

The tax break included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that encourages real estate investors to develop projects in economically distressed communities in exchange for deferring capital gains taxes for years has come under fire for not living up to its promise.

Certain land donation deals that get hefty tax deductions will be under tighter scrutiny from Internal Revenue Service auditors.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, teamed up with several of his fellow Democrats on new legislation and investigations of reported abuses of the opportunity zone tax break for real estate investors.