Year End Tax Planning Tips for Small/Mid Businesses
December 9, 2011 | 
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Resident Tax Expert Jeff Cohen presented year end tax planning tips to a group of Maryland business owners last night. If you missed the presentation, but want to plan a strong close to 2011 , view the slide presentation below. Strategies that worked in the past might not this year, while there are some exciting new opportunities.
Questions about how you can plan for the year end and start 2012 on the right foot?
Empty Nesters- Protect Yourself! ~ Highlights from the day.
September 20, 2011 | Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Today, in partnership with Hodes, Pessin, & Katz, P.A., Glass Jacobson’s Women in Business Practice hosted the first in the 2011-2012 series, “Women: Protect Yourself. Financial & Legal Strategies for Navigating Life’s Stages.” The series is dedicated to helping women navigate the unique challenges they face.
Today’s seminar, held over lunch, focused on women in the empty nest stage. Women at this time in their lives finally have a moment to think about their own future! Christine Schmitz of Glass Jacobson shared some interesting financial tools women can use to accumulate assets for their retirement, Kim Battaglia of Hodes, Pessin and Katz talked about legal ways to protect those assets, and our special guest, Elise Rubinstein, a Health Coach, helped us understand how we can feel good enough to enjoy them.
We will be posting the tools, articles and handouts from today’s session here.
Our next seminar, Business 101, is scheduled for November 15th from 11:45-1:30. More details to follow.
Selling Your Home? Here are 10 Tax Tips:
August 25, 2011 | Subscribe to our RSS Feed
If you are selling your home right now, and actually stand to make a gain from the sale, you may qualify to exclude all or part of that gain from your income. Here are 10 tips to keep in mind:
- Generally, you are eligible to exclude the gain from income if you have owned and used the home as your MAIN RESIDENCE for two out of the last five years prior to the date of its sale.
- If you have a gain from the sales of your main home, you may be able to exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from your income ($500,000 on a joint return).
- You are not eligible for the exclusion if you excluded the gain from the sale of another home during the 2 year period prior the sale.
- If you can exclude the gain, you do not need to report the sale on your tax return.
- If the gain cannot be excluded and is taxable, you must report it on Form 1040.
- You cannot deduct a loss from the sale of your main home.
- Use the worksheets included in IRS Publication 523 to help you calculate what can be excluded.
- You can only exclude the gain from the sale of your main home. If you have two homes and live in both of them, your main home is ordinarily the one you live in most of the time.
- If you received the fist-time homebuyer credit and within36 months of the date of purchase, the property is no longer used as your principal residence, you must repay the credit.
- Always update your address with the IRS and US Postal Service when you move.
Questions?
9 Tips for Tax Payers Making Charitable Donations
August 22, 2011 | Subscribe to our RSS Feed
If you make a donation to charity this year, you may be able to take a deduction on your 2011 tax return. Here are 9 things you should know:
- Make sure the organization qualifies. You can find a full list of qualifying organizations at www.irs.gov. Check IRS Publication 78.
- You must itemize.
- Deduction value. You can generally deduct your cash contributions and the fair market value of most property you donate. Special rules apply to several types of donated property, including clothing, household items, cars and boats.
- Receiving gifts or services in return. When your contribution entitles you to receive merchandise, services or goods- like admission to a charity banquet- you can deduct only the amount that exceeds fair market value of the benefit received.
- Recordkeeping. Keep good records of any contribution you make, regardless of the amount.
- Pledges and payments. Only contributions actually made during the tax year are deductible. If you pledge an amount to a charitable organization in 2010, but do not pay the full amount by 12/31, you can only deduct the amount paid.
- Donations made near the end of the year. Include credit card payments and payments by check in the year you gave them to the charity, even though you may not pay the credit card bill or have your checking account debited until the following year.
- Large donations. For any contribution $250 or more, you need to have more than a bank record. You must have written acknowledgement from the organization. For items valued at more than $500 you must complete IRS Form 8283. For a contribution of noncash property valued at more than $5000, you generally must obtain an appraisal.
- Tax exemption revoked. Approximately 275,000 organizations lost their tax-exempt status recently because they did not file required reports in a timely manner, as required by law. Donations made to one of these organizations prior to the organization’s status revocation remain tax-deductible.
Questions?
Vacation Plans and Financial Plans
July 22, 2011 | Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Summer is here; it is time to pack up the bags and the kids (don’t pack the kids in the bags or maybe that is not such a bad idea), if you have any, and hit the road. My guess is that you did some planning prior to starting your trip thinking of where you were going, how you were going to get there and maybe some of the sights you might see. You did not pile everyone and everything into the car and take off or just go to the airport and buy a ticket to some random place. My guess is that before heading on your vacation you had a reasonable idea of all of the above as well as how much it might cost you.
How many of you dentists and non-dentists out there approach your financial future like you do your vacation? How many of you plan for the future: your retirement, your children’s education, your insurance needs and other financial needs? My professional experience has been that many more people plan their vacations than plan their financial future.
The are many reasons:
- The time necessary to gather the material to start the process
- The cost
- The fear of not being able to implement the plan
- Not wanting to be constrained to a budget
- Embarrassed at how much wealth one has accumulated
I am frequently asked by clients how much they should contribute to a child’s 529 Plan or what type of mutual fund purchase is best. While these may sound like simple questions there are many factors that need to be taken into account. The answer for each individual or family will be different. There are no cookie cutter answers to these questions.
We’ve all seen commercials where it says some stunt was performed by a professional and to not try this at home. Planning for your financial future works the same way. Unless you have the time and resources available you should be leaving your financial plan to professionals and not try it at home.
The financial services professionals at Glass Jacobson can help you plan for your future so you don’t get lost. You should put as much planning into your financial future as you do your vacation. We would be happy to discuss your financial needs with you and put you on the right path. Give us a call today.