by Zesha Auerbach, CPAForm 1099 is the form that payors of income use to inform you of the income paid to you. Most of the form 1099s you receive are fairly straightforward. You receive a 1099 from the bank to report interest income paid to you and you receive a 1099 from any stock that […]
By Barry C Picker, CPA/PFS, CFP Section 72(t) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that there is a 10% additional tax for early withdrawals from a retirement plan. That section also states the exceptions to this 10% tax. The Courts have consistently said that if you meet one of the exceptions, you don’t have […]
by Barry C Picker, CPA/PFS, CFPWhen an individual who clearly has a losing argument on the taxability of his retirement plan distribution goes to Tax Court anyway, maybe it’s because he doesn’t fully understand the law.However, when he loses in Tax Court, appeals to the Court of Appeals and loses there, and then files an appeal […]
I came up with the term “inoculated” a number of years ago. The term arose in a situation where someone was telling me about this “great new tax scheme.” It was clear from the description of the scheme that it would never work, and in fact it didn’t, once the IRS got wind of it. However, when […]
This Sunday’s The Ethicist column in the New York Times contains two questions and answers which, to me, each dealt with the same theme. The first question involved whether a doctor should be reported for unethical behavior when the motivation was revenge, and the second question involved an individual wanting to pay somebody else’s […]
Guaranteeing Loans to a Company Owned by One’s IRA is a Prohibited Transaction Sec. 408(e) of the Internal Revenue Code states that if an IRA engages in a prohibited transaction, as defined in Sec. 4975, it ceases to be an IRA as of the first day of the year in which the […]
A common debate among financial planners when discussing life insurance is whether one should buy term insurance or insurance that provides a cash value. Among the points of discussion on the term side is that one should “buy term and invest the difference,” the difference being the lower term premium in the earlier years. One […]
by Barry C Picker, CPA/PFS, CFP Paperless, paperless, paperless. It’s all the rage. We have to get rid of paper. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it. I would love to get all the stuff in our filing cabinets into electronic format and shred, shred, shred. But I’ve concluded that instead of […]
The Supreme Court decision in Windsor v. US has effectively struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act retroactively. As such, anyone affected can file amended joint returns for all open years. The normal Statute of Limitations is three years. Therefore, 2010, 2011 and 2012 are all open years. Additionally, if both spouses […]
It’s been a good year for the stock market; many portfolios are showing a decent gain. This is true for mutual funds also.But mutual funds have a little tax quirk – they must distribute their capital gains to their shareholders. This is all well and good, except that most shareholders just reinvest the dividends in […]