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Child Tax Credit Payments

Starting in July, Americans who have children aged 17 and under, will be receiving payments for the Child Tax Credit that passed legislation under the American Rescue Plan. The IRS will begin sending out monthly payments of $250 or $300 through December to qualifying families.

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Making Charitable Donations from your IRA

If you have reached age 70½ and are evaluating charitable giving options, you may consider making a charitable donation directly from your IRA.

The benefits

Contributions made directly from your IRA to a charity reduce the taxable portion of your IRA distributions and count toward your annual required minimum distribution (RMD).

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Withholding Changes

  • Taxes

The new tax law made it hard to know how much to withhold from your paycheck every few weeks. As a result, many people withheld less than they might otherwise have, and either received a smaller rebate than expected or had to pay additional taxes in April.

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Tax Law Changes and the Government Shutdown

  • Taxes

As the shutdown continues, we would like to urge you to continue to monitor your own tax situation and how it relates to your financials, being prepared for when the shutdown ends as well as continuing to look toward your future. 

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Harvesting Losses

Recently, we have experienced a downturn in the markets and while that is frustrating and, at times, downright scary, there are ways that you can take advantage of these tough times. Tax-loss harvestingnot only can decrease your tax liability exposure by offsetting taxable income, it also allows you to indirectly increase your overall return or have the ability to reap the gains from some of your other investments.

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Charitable Contributions Using RMD’s

  • Taxes

With the new tax law changes from the 2017 Tax Cut & Jobs act, many Americans will be utilizing the increased standard deduction rather than itemizing. Those of you who are subject to the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) rules can make distributions to your favorite charities from your IRA.

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’Tis the Season

The period between Thanksgiving and the end-of-year holiday season would seem like a sleepy time for financial planners, but in fact it is anything but. You might be surprised at how much activity takes place on behalf of you and your investments in the final month of the year.

For instance? Even though this has been a good year in the markets, not all investments will have gained value. This is the last opportunity to harvest any losses we find in taxable accounts, by selling investments that have gone down and “booking” the loss. Then we can look for investments that have gained value, sell some of those to offset the losses, and thereby save capital gains taxes in the future. Up to $3,000 of ordinary income can be offset by investment losses as well.

This is also the time of year when mutual fund companies post, in advance, the amount of ordinary income and capital gain distributions they will make to their shareholders. Since the value of the shares drops by the amount that is distributed, this would seem like a non-event performance-wise. But in fact some mutual funds are poised to make 20% or even 30% distributions, and this cash is immediately taxable, unlike gains in the share values, which are only realized when you decide to sell. By selling funds before the distributions, and buying them back later, we can reduce your tax bill this year.

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Tax Proposal: What does it mean for you?

  • Taxes

There is a lot of discussion happening regarding the recently released GOP Tax Proposal. With pages and pages of proposed changes the most important thing to note is that this is a proposal, certainly not a finished product and the tax overhaul is far from certain. For you, our clients, not much has changed in the kind of preparation we believe you should be doing. As in every year, we want you to review your expenses, income and last year’s returns and of course, look at any what-if scenarios that may be on your horizon.

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Tax Reduction Strategies

​1. Pay Yourself First

The utilization of company retirement plans (401-k's and Simple IRA's) are the easiest way to build up tax advantaged assets for your retirement goals. Verify that you are contributing the amount required in order to maximize the employer's match. Above that amount it would usually be prudent to try to contribute the maximum amount possible in order to minimize your income tax liability.

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