The IRS’s annual Dirty Dozen list may sound like a gimmick, but taxpayers should take it seriously. It’s a road map to current IRS audit priorities and a warning to taxpayers and tax professionals to avoid fraudulent and abusive tax schemes or strategies. Use of a strategy on the list can not only result in an audit, but make it impossible to avoid substantial tax penalties.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2023 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2023 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a useless $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that simultaneously (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction.

Pay less in taxes this year by donating clothing and household items. When you know what to do and how to do it, the non-cash deductions available here can help you pocket some after-tax cash that costs you nothing but a little time and effort.

Your non-cash charitable contribution must run the gauntlet before giving you tax benefits. This article examines a court case in which one hurdle prevented clothing donations to Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

NFTs—short for “non-fungible tokens”—are one of the hottest types of digital assets. Unlike Bitcoin, they are not digital currency. Instead, they represent ownership of virtual or physical assets. NFTs can be bought and sold on online platforms. Such sales result in ordinary income for NFT creators. Purchasers face the collectibles rules if the NFTs are collectibles and the owner can recognize capital gains or losses both on initial purchase and later sales.

Charitable contributions not only support great causes but can also reduce your taxes. Download this guide to read up on four often overlooked tax strategies for maximizing your tax savings with charitable contributions.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2022 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

If you give money to your church and/or other 501(c)(3) organizations, you should consider establishing an account with a donor-advised fund to increase your tax benefit possibilities. It’s easy to do and gives you an immediate charitable deduction—even when you have the fund distribute the money years later.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2021 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a useless $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2021 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

The Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 deals with the annual tax extenders. Congress made some of them permanent, while others got short- or long-term extensions. We’ll go through each and tell you how it fared in the legislation.

The massive new stimulus law contains eight new tax breaks that help the average non-business taxpayer. These include something for everyone, both rich and poor. Wealthy taxpayers can contribute more to charity and still get a deduction; average people get an extension of the universal charitable deduction; and low-income taxpayers can get a larger earned income tax credit. Popular programs such as the lifetime learning credit are expanded to help more people. The bill also extends some favorable tax rules, such as the 7.5 percent adjusted gross income floor for the medical deduction.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your 2020 year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

Congress just passed the CARES Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In it, there are a lot of important tax benefits for you and your business. We’ll tell you about a collection of important ones you need to know.

Giving to your church, school, or other 501(c)(3) charity is a noble act no matter how you choose to give. But for the purposes of tax savings, some forms of giving are much more beneficial to you than others. As a business owner, you can use some business strategies to get the money to these institutions as business expenses. While this does not change anything from the institution’s perspective, it hugely increases your tax savings.

Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review three year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

Once you turn age 70 1/2, the tax code mandates that you withdraw a tax code–defined required minimum distribution (RMD) from your traditional IRA. But by using the RMD or other IRA distribution with a qualified charitable distribution (QCD), you can eliminate the RMD tax bite, possibly reduce your Medicare premiums and income taxes on your Social Security benefits, and more.

Your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2018 income taxes when you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Starting now, this year (2018), you have to consider your Section 199A deduction in your year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review four year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at the same time.

If you have high income and operate an out-of-favor specified service business, you may think your Section 199A deduction is gone for good. But there is hope: we’ll explain how a conservation easement may be the solution to your problem. And if the numbers work out, you could get a large tax windfall in the process.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made several beneficial changes that affect partnerships and their partners and LLCs and their members that are treated as partnerships for tax purposes.

Imagine this. You pay $1,000 for your golf foursome to play golf in the annual charitable golf outing. You have been doing this for years, and you were always able to deduct the full $1,000. Now, because of the new tax reform, your deduction is $300. Disturbing?

Section 1031 exchanges are perfect when you are going to stay in the real estate rental or investment business. When it’s time to cash out, you need to look at different strategies that help you avoid taxes and give you cash to spend (liquidity).

There are many reasons why you may want to donate your business vehicle to charity, not the least of which is that you’re helping a worthy cause. But if your goal is to couple that good deed with a nice tax deduction, make sure you do the math before you hand over the keys to avoid suffering an unpleasant tax surprise.

The IRS deemed that personal use of business-earned frequent flyer miles and hotel reward points are tax-free until further notice. Cash rewards are another matter. First, they are not gross income. Second, they reduce basis. Third, they produce a deduction when you donate them to charity.

When you turn age 70 1/2, the IRS wants a piece of those IRA accounts that you built up all those years. You’re required to make mandatory withdrawals each year just so the IRS can tax you on those amounts. But what if you can limit, perhaps even eliminate, these required withdrawals? Not only that, what if you could benefit a local charity in the process as well? Find out how donating to charity directly from your IRA accounts can make a huge impact on your bottom line.

Your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2015 income taxes when you take advantage of the Tax Code’s offset game. The Tax Code contains basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the correct strategies. In addition to saving taxes with the game of offset, you can also avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children who are not subject to the kiddie tax.

Pay less in taxes this year by donating clothing and household items. When you know what to do and how to do it, the noncash deductions available here can help you pocket some hefty after-tax cash that costs you nothing but a little time and effort.

Giving to charity is a noble act no matter how you choose to give. But for purposes of tax savings, some forms of giving are much more beneficial to you than others. As a business owner, you can turn your charitable contribution into a business expense. While this does not change anything from the charity’s perspective, this hugely increases your tax savings.

Your stock market portfolio is a great place to look for year-end tax planning opportunities. First, it’s a place where you can avoid paying taxes on stock appreciation by gifting stock to charity, your parents, and your children. Second, it’s a place where you can play a simple game of offset where you cancel out high taxes. This article gives you seven strategies that reduce your taxes and make you smile.

Making tax-deductible charitable contributions has become more difficult with each passing year. Two culprits make things messier than in years past. First, lawmakers have enacted more rules that you need to follow. Second, the Internet offers you opportunities to make donations that don’t qualify for tax deductions. That’s the bad news, but there is plenty of good news when you do this right.

Have you considered the possibilities of turning the monies you send to charities into business expenses? You should. It can save you tax dollars. Sure, you might already be deducting the money now as charitable deductions. But wouldn’t you really rather achieve the tax deductions as tax-favored business expenses?

You can achieve year-end tax benefits by offsetting your stock market gains and losses in the right way. You also can make a gift of appreciated stock to charity, which will increase your tax benefits over what you would achieve with a cash gift. Be careful here though, as a gift of depreciated (versus appreciated) stock to a charity decreases your charitable deductions, costs you cash, and makes you unhappy when you find out what you’ve done.

As with other forms of business entertainment, taking a prospect, colleague, or client to a sporting event is deductible at the rate of 50 percent of costs. But, as this scenario illustrates, if the sporting event you and a prospect, colleague, or client attend is a certain type of “charitable sporting event,” your costs are 100 percent deductible.

The IRS just released the new 2013 standard mileage rates. For business purposes, you can use the standard mileage rates in lieu of actual expenses for depreciation and operating expenses of the vehicle. It’s different for charity, medical, and moving mileage. Here, the rate is in lieu of “out of pocket” operating expenses only.

Are thinking about harvesting your tax losses? You should be. Leaving tax-deductible losses on the table at the end of the year is very disappointing. And then there’s the stock gift to charity. Are you doing these correctly so as to maximize your tax benefits? Make sure by reading this article now.

Tax law contains a strange rule that doubles the business tax deduction for a charitable skeet shoot over the deduction allowed for business entertainment. In fact, the charitable-skeet-shoot rule produces a business tax deduction greater than what you could deduct as a charitable deduction.

Tax law favors and allows deductions for civic and public service clubs and even names some favored clubs. But tax law does not allow dues deductions for airline, hotel, country, golf, athletic, and business-meal clubs.

Are you looking for more tax deductions this year? It’s not too late. Learn 12 last-minute tax-planning ideas that you can implement to create or push more deductions into this year so you can pay less in taxes this year.

The critical point for making payments to charities and churches deductible business expenses is your reasonable expectation of financial return.

You always come out ahead when you can deduct your charity involvement as a business expense.

Allowing your church to use office space free does not produce a tax deduction for you. Make sure you know the rules on these types of donations, including the rules that apply when you donate a week at your timeshare or vacation home.

Being in business for yourself produces huge tax-deduction advantages for golfers and golf spectators. Golf advantages are more than double those of football, baseball, and basketball.

Lawmakers finally let the IRS deal with deducting charitable mileage! The IRS annually updates its deduction rates for mileage, but lawmakers haven’t updated their charitable mileage rate since 1997. Read how a new law applies the IRS rates for charitable mileage, and how this affects you.

If you want to donate money from your IRA to charity, there are two ways to do it: you can have the IRA send the money directly to the charity, or you can do it an alternate way. We recommend sending the money directly to save money on taxes. There are important details, however, so read closely.

If you donate cash to a charity, it is deductible. However, try and deduct the value of your time or services, and you run into problems with the law.

If you do not itemize your deductions, pay self-employment taxes, or suffer deduction phaseouts, you will likely benefit from making your donations deductible as business expenses. But if you decide to make business contributions to charity, make sure you know how to make your proof stand up to scrutiny.

Public Law 109-280 makes tax deductions for donations to charity far more difficult. Here is one example of the changes: dropping $5 in the collection basket at Church on Sunday is no longer deductible. Now you need a cancelled check or a receipt to claim that deduction.

Follow this golden rule: Do not make charitable contributions to individuals. Make your donations directly to the qualifying charitable organizations.

Historic rehab tax credits can put you in Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed favorite spot. Tax credits often exceed the cash you invest in the project making the historic rental or office building a “nothing down” deal for you. Add nonrecourse financing to the package and you have no personal risk. None of your cash in the deal and no personal risk—this is Mr. Trump’s favorite spot. You might do as many Congressional leaders do: Donate your personal home’s historic facade to charity so can realize big tax credits.

Rebates have become common. The tax treatment of a rebate by the salesperson depends on whether you write a check or receive a reduced commission and whether you do this rebate for charitable or promotional purposes.

The IRS told lawmakers that a number of people were cheating on vehicle donations and that some changes in the rules could put a quick stop to that. This court case explains why lawmakers went along with the IRS and enacted the changes that are in effect today.