Last fall I was meeting with a prospective client who was starting a small business. The business had just $10,000 of income in 2018, and would maybe have $30,000 of income in 2019. She was thinking about making her business an S-corporation because her dentist had told her about “these great tax strategies where you […]
Form 1099-C is a form used by lenders to report canceled debt to the IRS. Canceled debt is often taxable to the recipient, though the tax code contains a number of “outs” that can allow the recipient to avoid taxation. Examples of those outs include when the taxpayer is insolvent, or foreclosures on a taxpayer’s […]
Railroad Retirement Benefits are a type of retirement benefit paid to — as the name suggests — people who worked for the railroad. There are two types of Railroad Retirement Benefits: Tier I and Tier II. Tier I Tier I benefits are equivalent to Social Security benefits and are taxed in the same way. Tier […]
So far we’ve filled 5 parts of this series and reached no definitive conclusion. One can make educated guesses, and one can use the NIIT regs to say “only” real estate professionals have a trade or business. In closing, I want to discuss why there isn’t better guidance out there on this. It would be […]
Before we go any further, let’s go back to the beginning and the whole “the ACA said landlords had to issue 1099s and then that got repealed” thing. What was the ACA really trying to change? If we look at committee notes on the ACA legislation, it seems like what Congress was trying to do […]
Let’s recap what the issues are when determining if a rental owner needs to issue 1099s. Section 6041 deals with issuing 1099s. Section 6041 and the related regulations simply say “trades or businesses” need to issue 1099s. No definition of “trade or business” is given. Trade or business status with rentals has typically referred to […]
More and more brokerages and making 1099s available ONLY online, meaning the client has to think to go out and retrieve the 1099s. So this time of year is a good time to make a note to verify what brokerage or investment accounts you have, find your login, and make a note to log in at tax time to check for 1099s.
In the tax world, a capital loss means selling something for less than you originally paid for it. Deductions for losses are often limited or not allowed at all.
What tax deductions can a college professor take? Tax reform has made it almost impossible for professors to take any deductions anymore.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about whether or not a married couple can choose to file a separate return where one spouse claims the other spouse as a dependent. The answer is yes, if the spouse being claimed as a dependent: Has no gross income, and Isn’t filing a tax return, […]