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Archive for the ‘TaxCoach’ Category

Tax Changes Under the Trump Administration?

Posted by taxguru on November 9, 2016

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 45th 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).

TaxCoach Software: Are you giving your clients what they really want?

Posted in TaxCoach, TaxReform, Trump | Comments Off on Tax Changes Under the Trump Administration?

Some of the new upcoming ObamaCare taxes

Posted by taxguru on July 6, 2012

The folks at TaxCoach recently prepared a client alert addressing some of the new taxes we will all have to deal with after last week’s insane ruling by John Roberts and the Supremes, including the following.

  • On January 1, 2013, the Medicare tax will go up by 0.9% for individuals earning over $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers, $125,000 for married individuals filing separately).
  • Also on January 1, there will be a new “Unearned Income Medicare Contribution” of 3.8% on investment income, for those earning more than $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers).
  • Beginning on January 1, 2014, there will be a new $2,500 limit on tax-free contributions to flexible spending accounts, and employers with more than 50 employees will face a penalty of $2,000 per employee for not offering health insurance to full-time employees.
  • The threshold for deducting medical and dental expenses rises from 7.5% of adjusted gross income to 10%. This will make these expenses even harder to deduct without help from advanced strategies like Health Savings Accounts or Medical Expense Reimbursement Plans.

TaxCoach Software: Are you giving your clients what they really want?

 

 

Posted in ObamaCare, TaxCoach, TaxHikes | Comments Off on Some of the new upcoming ObamaCare taxes

TaxCoach Update

Posted by taxguru on April 19, 2012

I was recently  invited by Ed Lyon, one of the head honchos at TaxCoach, to be his co-host for the next Member Call-In webinar, on Wednesday, April 25. It’s not an actual phone call; but is run for about an hour with their webinar program over the internet, where the hosts actually speak and everyone else can type in questions and comments. If you are already a TaxCoach member, I hope you can join us next Wednesday. If you have been considering joining, now would be a good time to take that step. If you sign up before April 25, you will be able to take part in my Member Call-In appearance.

It’s been a while since I’ve discussed the benefits of the TaxCoach service. As with most programs of its kind, it has been benefiting from economies of scale. With its growing membership, they have been able to add many more useful features and updates at a much quicker pace than in past years.

They have also added a lot of additional higher cost services and features for tax practitioners who are interested in building up their client base that sound like they are well worth the money for those growing their practices. They are definitely a much wiser investment for adding new clients than the scam services that sell client referrals based on bait and switch tactics.

I know that their advice and strategies are solid because they are exactly what I did to build my practices back in California and here in Arkansas; speeches, seminars, newsletters and referrals. Their customizable seminar packages save a lot of preparation time.

I don’t run a lot of reports from it, but when I need to explain some tax saving strategies to clients, I find it the most efficient way to present that information to them.

Over the past several months, including during Tax Season, I have even been taking advantage of some other very useful TaxCoach services, weekly webinars – TaxCoach University and Member Call-In – that have been extremely informative as to how to best utilize the tools TaxCoach has available to all members; even those of us with the basic membership.

 

TaxCoach Software: Finally! Plain-English Tax Planning That Builds Your Business!

Posted in TaxCoach | Comments Off on TaxCoach Update

Using TaxCoach

Posted by taxguru on May 30, 2010

I am still receiving frequent requests to comment on the value of using the TaxCoach service. I don’t mind this one bit and am glad people are interested enough to do their own research.
As I have explained countless times, for the past few years I have been too swamped with existing clients to be able to accept any new ones. I do have a self imposed limit on how many clients I can properly handle because I have stuck to my vow from when we relocated here to the Ozarks from the SF Bay Area in 1993 not to hire any employees and have to deal with the kinds of hassles I had to cope with back there.
Pretty much all of the advertising and promotion that Ed & Keith have been doing for their TaxCoach service over the past five years has been focused on how to use it to generate new clientele. Since I routinely turn down several potential clients every week who approach me based on my blogs and websites, it would seem that TaxCoach would be a waste of money for me.
That obviously hasn’t been the case. While I admit that I don’t use TaxCoach as often as my main references, TheTaxBook, for answering questions, I do like the quick and easy way I can use TaxCoach to generate a report on topics relevant to a client or a reader who writes in. I keep this list of the main available report topics in the front of my TaxBook so I can see when a TaxCoach report would be possible for a particular circumstance.
For the past few years, we have also been including one of these TaxCoach update questionnaires with the annual Lacerte tax return organizers. For clients who check off some of the items, I generate a TaxCoach report for those items and any others I feel may be appropriate for the client and include that in the folder with the tax returns. It is so much faster and professional looking than trying to compile that info any other way, including by copying the relevant pages from TheTaxBook.
In the past year, TaxCoach has added some premium services that I have chosen not to sign up for because they are focused almost entirely on how to expand tax and accounting practices. I obviously have no need for that; but for those of you who are looking to add new clients, this would be much more practical and honest than the scam services that lure in new clients under false pretenses and sell them to accountants around the country.
Anyways, I hope this information is useful and I welcome any other questions or comments from readers on TaxCoach, as well as other similar tax reference services.


TaxCoach Software: Are you giving your clients what they really want?


Posted in TaxCoach | Comments Off on Using TaxCoach