Month of December, 2007

In the past, the IRS has required employers to send in copies of questionable W-4s (Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate) received from their employees. They recently issued final regulations streamlining the requirement.

In the transfer from the old Blog format to the new one, we lost our comments and some questions. At TaxLoopholes we don’t want to leave any question unanswered (Although often the answer is “It depends!”) Here are some of the comments we received during the transfer regarding AMT.

If you are using your LLC or LP as a means to transfer wealth from one generation to the next while minimizing taxes, gifting interests will be a part of that plan. But you need to be careful when and how much you gift so you don’t wind up triggering extra tax.

Handing Over the Keys to Your Estate … $12k at a time

Have you done your back of the envelope calculation for taxes you’ll owe for 2007? If not, this might be a good week to pull some of that information together. One of the most important questions to answer is whether you’ll be subject to Alternative Minimum Tax. Look for more strategies on how to get around AMT (and how to find out if you’re subject to it) through this Blog.

This month’s online workshops, offered as part of the First Class Lounge, are all about Last Minute Loopholes. These are the things you can do right now, to pay less tax right now.

Continuing on my theme of “leave no question unanswered,” there was a comment on the old Blog regarding pensions that I wanted to make sure I address. Oftentimes the very best end-of-the-year, last minute type of tax planning is by the use of a pension plan. So, it’s especially pertinent right now.

Several years ago, when I was just learning the ropes of the U.S. asset protection system the idea of using Limited Partnerships for families was hot. People loved them for three major reasons:

(a) Absolute General Partner control was firmly established by caselaw
(b) Tax-saving advantages
(c) Easy transfer of assets to the next generation

There was also a massive marketing push towards getting people into “family” limited partnerships. But a lot of things have changed since then. Is an FLP still a good choice?

Looks like Congress is still making some efforts to clean up the impending AMT disaster. Yesterday the Senate approved a one-year AMT patch without offsets, stripping out all of the other measures from the original House bill (HR 3996) that were originally intended to provide the offsetting increase in tax revenue. The measure passed last night by an 88-5 margin.

I don’t know about you, but my email inbox is getting flooded with solicitations for Foreclosure Investment Workshops. Without a doubt, now is the time to make some money on the buy!

I’ve been in real estate investing long enough, that I’ve seen this cycle before. So have most of the foreclosure instructors out there. The one thing that is very different, though, is the rules have changed in many states. Please read the rest of this article before you sign up for anything.

Courtesy ABC News

You might have noticed some of the recent changes at Tax Loopholes. For example, we no longer do weekly highlights of What’s Hot in tax planning. Now, there is a daily blog entry that is highlighted on the front page. And if you’ve wondered how to learn more or clarify a point, we’ve made it easy for you to do that. Please leave us a comment on the applicable Blog Post. There are a lot of critical tax bills being debated right now. Keep current by checking back every day.

There is one more change that you’ll see in the bottom left hand corner of this page.

What’s Most Important to You?

Three years ago I’d have told you that if you paid too much in taxes, you needed to buy more real estate. Today, that advice is just flat wrong if you’re subject to AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax)! Now, it’s even worse if you’re a real estate agent claiming the real estate professional loophole.

Agent Beware! The IRS is Looking for You!