The New York State program for the reduction of school taxes (“STAR”) changed for homeowners that purchase their homes after January 2, 2015. Such homeowners will no longer receive the benefit of the STAR program as a reduction of their real estate tax bills for school tax. Rather, they will receive the benefit of the program in the form of check, scheduled to be mailed after September 30 ...
Practitioners should warn their business clients about the New York Family Leave Act, and they should be ready for it in their own practices and firms. New York State recently issued regulations regarding the program, so there are important new developments in the area. Background: The program will provide family leave for the birth or adoption of a new child or to care for a seriously ill par...
As discussed in our post on June 5, 2017, it is important to make a timely election for portability for estate and gift tax purposes, when a married individual dies with an estate valued under the current federal estate tax threshold ($5,490,000 for decedents who die in 2017), and there is a surviving spouse. The IRS just issued Revenue Procedure 2017-34, which provides retroactive relief for ...
If a client dies with an estate valued under the current federal estate tax threshold ($5,490,000 for decedents who die in 2017), it may still be prudent to file a federal estate tax return in order to elect portability for the surviving spouse. Portability allows the surviving spouse to benefit from the unused federal lifetime exclusion of the deceased spouse for gifts made by the surviving s...
Do you have clients that did not file their tax returns or extensions by the due date? If you have not done so already, warn them in writing that they need to file as soon as possible to reduce the penalties and interest that may apply to the late-filed returns. The penalty for failure to file a return is 5% per month of the balance due (maximum of 25%). This is addition to interest and the...
Do you have any clients who had net operating losses for the 2016 tax year? If so, plan to amend their prior-year returns to claim the loss (or file a claim for refund form), unless the client made an election to forgo the carryback of the loss. Generally, net operating losses are carried back to the two previous tax years and carried forward to the 20 subsequent tax years.
In April 2017, the IRS began using private debt collection companies to collect inactive tax debts. Taxpayers should be extremely careful to verify the legitimacy of the correspondence from any debt collection company by calling the IRS if they are contacted by such a company. This is especially true in light of the high volume of tax collection scams that have been recently occurring. The...
As the filing due date approaches, last minute communications with clients happen at a fast and furious pace. It is vital to make sure that client information is still being properly safeguarded. All attachments to emails should be encrypted with passwords or sent via a secure portal. No sensitive information should be included in the body of an email. Attachments should never be sent via...
When preparing extensions for individual income tax returns, practitioners should communicate with clients about the specifics used to prepare the extensions, and such communications should be in writing. It is vital to tell clients about the estimates and assumptions that were used for missing items. It is also vital to warn clients that the client could be subject to penalties and interest,...
If you have a client that misses the 60-day time limit for rolling funds from one IRA to another IRA, there are new relief procedures available from Revenue Procedure 2016-47. If the client meets one of the exceptions listed in that Revenue Procedure, the client can self-certify to the IRA trustee that they are entitled to relief from the 60-day limit. As a result, many clients can obtain rel...
