Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

Now that Hitlery is out of the equation, we don’t have to waste time and energy worrying about the trillions of dollars in new taxes she was promising-threatening.  We can now focus on the what changes we might be seeing over the next few years under President Trump, along with the GOP controlled Congress. 

A good start at analyzing the changes we can expect is the following news release from TaxCoach, one of the most useful resources for any tax pros who are interested in keeping up on the most state of the art tax savings techniques for their clients.

Trump Won…Now What?

On January 20, Donald Trump will take the oath of office as the 45^th President of the United States. He’ll have the full support of a Republican House and Senate, meaning an end to the gridlock of the past six years. What effect will his inauguration have on your taxes?

Trump has proposed a conventionally Republican suite of changes: lower rates, new deductions for families, and incentives to repatriate foreign earnings. At the same time, he has proposed to limit certain breaks and cap overall itemized deduction.

However, these are just the latest of several proposals Trump floated during the campaign. Trump appears to be less focused on policy details than on broad themes, so we shouldn’t be surprised if he lets Congressional Republicans take the lead on tax planning policy.

 

Individual Taxes

• Cut brackets to three: 12-25-33%

• Boost standard deduction to $15,000 ($30,000 for joint filers)

• New deduction for individual health insurance premiums

• New deduction for child care costs and “dependent care savings accounts”

• Limit itemized deductions other than mortgage interest and charitable gifts

• Cap itemized deductions at $100,000 ($200,000 for joint filers)

• Tax “carried interest” as ordinary income

• Repeal Alternative Minimum Tax

• Repeal “Obamacare” taxes

Estate Taxes

• Repeal Gift & Estate Tax

• Repeal stepped-up basis on gains over $10 million

Corporate Taxes

• Eliminate deferral of tax on foreign business income

• Impose 10% repatriation tax on accumulated profits of foreign subsidiaries

Repeal most business tax incentives (except R&D).