Despite the flowery promises in the White House “American Families Plan” Fact Sheet, The Heritage Foundation summed it up as follows.

Biden’s American Families Plan will hurt families. The AFP would increase Washington’s control of preschool, child care, community college, and four-year colleges.

The AFP is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, promising “free” assistance that will result in more debt for our children and grandchildren to pay.

The wolf promises to ease our burdens but, in reality, stands ready to take charge of the decisions that families and communities know how to handle best.

“More debt for our children and families.” Bingo. Including potentially catastrophic financial disasters for untold numbers of those children and families.

Part of Biden’s plan to fund the AFP is by amending federal estate tax law — the so-called “death tax” — that would eliminate stepped-up-basis on appreciated assets inherited by family members, meaning heirs would be forced to pay taxes on assets that increased in value during the lifetime of the deceased relative.

As reported by Just the News, current federal estate tax law — not to be confused with the various state inheritance tax laws — includes a stepped-up basis tax provision that allows an heir to report the value of an asset at the time of inheriting it, thus “stepping up” the cost basis to the current value of an asset at the time of the inheritance, at which point they could sell the asset immediately and essentially avoid paying capital gains taxes, or retain the asset and either sell it later at an appreciated value, at which point they would pay capital gains tax on the increase between the inherited value and the selling price — or retain the asset and pass it to heirs at death. //

If we’re talking investment portfolios — fine; we can have that debate at a later time. But we’re also talking about family farms — many of them, generational family farms — as well as other family businesses. //

One potential family disaster is the fact that most family businesses consist largely of illiquid assets. Large plots of land owned by farmers are a perfect example; the land can often push a modest farm valuation past Biden’s $1 million threshold. //

“Farmers responsibly pay taxes to contribute their fair share to our country. They should not have to face tax burdens to pass their land from one generation to the next. This is how we keep generations of families farming.

“Therefore, we need to maintain protections to ensure the long-term success of family farms. They are the backbone of economic activity in rural areas, and we know the production of food and fiber is a national security issue.” //

Jmied01 • 19 minutes ago

“If we close that loophole, that saves us $400 billion”

Ala Ozark’s Marty Byrde: The *** it Does.

As if merely because it exists, you were always entitled to it? Removing more money from tax payers under implied threat of force is SAVING you money?

Well, I’m just going to rob a bank! I’m only SAVING MONEY. Knocking off the corner store? Creating new income! Nabbing the purse of the little old lady across the street? Generating revenue! //

scgrl625 • an hour ago

Here's some facts. If you plan on leaving your spouse or children anything, set up a revocable trust. If a spouse or child receives your inheritance, they will not have to pay inheritance taxes on the monies and property received from that trust. Also, there are only 6 states in the US that require an inheritance tax. Those states are PA, NE, NJ, MD, KY and IA, but not all tax laws for those states are the same. Some heirs may have to pay, and some may not.

Here's a quote from Smartasset.com, story titled "All About The Inheritance Tax" by Amanda Dixon, dated 7-30-2021.
"If the value of the assets being transferred is higher than the federal estate tax exemption (which is $11.7 million for singles for tax year 2021 and $23.4 million for married couples), the property can be subject to federal estate tax. States have their own exemption thresholds as well. Estate taxes are deducted from the property that’s being passed on before a beneficiary claims it. However, President Joe Biden has proposed eliminating the “stepped-up basis,” a provision that resets the value of inherited property to its current market value when its original owner dies." //

skeptic62 • 6 minutes ago • edited

I would encourage those who would be impacted by Biden’s government seizure by taxation to consider this. Choose a worthy heir early and sell your property, farm or business to your heir for a dollar plus a lifetime lease for you and your spouse. You don’t have to move out of your house. You don’t have to shutter your business. Everything stays pretty much the same. So, when the Grim Reaper comes a callin’ Uncle Sam can only seize your liquid assets. Done right, this would be a much smaller bill. //

johncv skeptic62 • 4 minutes ago

They have you covered with "gift tax" rules. Maximum per year "gifts".

Praxis

Another solution in search of a problem.

The fact is that per gallon tax takes all the factors into account all by itself. Weight, mileage, distance driven, all inherent to this very simple and defensible system. No need for armies of planners and seat moisteners 'estimating' costs and impacts.

What they want is twofold...yet more costs ladled onto drivers in an attempt to force them off the road with economic pain, and the ability to micromanage your driving down to the tiniest detail. And they want a wedge to start having scaled rates for distance as economic punishment, and to ration mobility, all while reaping punitive taxation windfalls.

There is zero reason not to simply do this for electric vehicles, and leave everyone else alone.

For almost 10 years, Hoosiers have been able to deduct up to $1,000 on their Indiana tax return for each child who attends a private or parochial school in Indiana or who is homeschooled. With so many students switching to virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you can’t blame parents for wondering if they can take Indiana’s Private School/Homeschool Deduction.

Under current law, you cannot deduct education expenses for which you were repaid, if your child was enrolled in a public or charter school, regardless of where learning took place. You can, however, claim the deduction if your child was enrolled in a private school, including a parochial school, if the school is physically located in Indiana. Expenses associated with distance learning for schools located outside of Indiana do not qualify.

Biden’s new budget proposal, intended to fund the American Families Plan, contains two intense tax increases, including estate and capital gains, which could reach up to 61 percent.

The new proposal will first be increasing the state’s already record high income tax rate on top earners, from the galling 13.3% levels to now become the offensive 16.8%.

But as well there will be a new wealth tax on those holding assets with a value of $30 million and above. This is regardless of where those assets are located; the tax would include any and all holdings outside the state. Properties owned in other states, as one example, would be calculated towards your net worth and taxed — in California.

Then it becomes truly offensive. More than including part-time citizens and those with a dual residency in another state, this new surcharge on the wealthy would take effect on anyone who spends only 60 days within the state’s borders. Those who visit family a couple of times a year could become at risk. //

The new proposal will first be increasing the state’s already record high income tax rate on top earners, from the galling 13.3% levels to now become the offensive 16.8%.

But as well there will be a new wealth tax on those holding assets with a value of $30 million and above. This is regardless of where those assets are located; the tax would include any and all holdings outside the state. Properties owned in other states, as one example, would be calculated towards your net worth and taxed — in California.

ABC’s Jon Karl committed some journalism today and asked Biden campaign co-chair Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), almost apologetically, but he still asked, doesn’t Biden’s plan obviously raise taxes on most Americans if you repeal the Trump tax cuts? Not just those making more than $400,000?

Richmond responds that’s our “goal” but “on day 1” you’ll see our plan. So why can’t we see it now? How do they intend to repeal the tax cuts yet not raise taxes? That’s just obvious nonsense. They’ll tell you. After you elect them. You have to elect them to see what they’ll do. Are they kidding with this?

They think they can get him in without having to be straight or go on record with anything.

If the New York Times story is true, someone broke the law to leak tax return information to the New York Times in order to undermine the President of the United States in the upcoming election. That someone broke the law to hurt Trump and help the Democrats. We should all be infuriated by that and by the fact that that the New York Times is willing to be involved in that. //

But I also wanted to point out how the top line fact they’re putting out of their story is actually refuted by their own story, that is the claim that Trump only paid $750 in 2016 and then again in 2017. The purpose of this is obviously to stir up anger against Trump for paying little in taxes.

As I said yesterday when the story dropped, I want someone who can actually read the law and apply it well. To me, that’s an asset. If you don’t like the law that allowed it, that Barack Obama signed, then take it up with the Congress and Obama. But why would anyone pay more to the government than they have to?

But as it turns out, if you read the New York Times’ own story, as they point out, Trump paid far more than $750 in each year, so this claim which is being spread everywhere is false, according to their own story.//

So what that means is he actually paid to the US Treasury $1 million in 2016 and $4.2 million in 2017 which was then rolled forward, not refunded when his ultimate tax liability was figured out. And he paid $750 in each year on top of that.

But it’s what the Times left out of their report that really gives the game away. While they breathlessly reported that Trump paid little income tax in 2016 and 2017, both years he has already admitted to losing money in, they conspicuously left out all the years before that in their write-up. //

In this case, it’s pretty obvious that Trump was making a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes in the decades that preceded his presidential run. This is especially true during the time he was doing The Apprentice. The reality is that he almost certainly paid tens of millions in taxes over many of the years from 2000-2015, for which the Times claims to have the returns.

The system is built to benefit rich businessmen like Trump. I don’t hold it against him. He’s doing nothing that the tax code wasn’t sculpted by the rich and powerful businessmen, corporations, and their lobbyists to allow.

The New York Times says it was someone who had a legal right to the data. But that doesn’t mean they had a legal right to leak it. Money bet is obviously on Democrats trying to do a hit on Trump in the final days before the election. And there’s definitely got to be an investigation into this because there’s no question the leak was illegal/improper, even if the person who leaked it might have been legally allowed to have the information.

But while Democrats were trying to do a hit on Trump, it may turn out to have the opposite effect.

Trump has been saying that he wasn’t releasing his taxes because he was under audit. Indeed, according to the New York Times, Trump has, in fact, been under an audit for about ten years, proving he was telling the truth.

The reason why is actually rather funny and all because of Barack Obama.

Business losses can work like a tax-avoidance coupon: A dollar lost on one business reduces a dollar of taxable income from elsewhere. The types and amounts of income that can be used in a given year vary, depending on an owner’s tax status. But some losses can be saved for later use, or even used to request a refund on taxes paid in a prior year.

Until 2009, those coupons could be used to wipe away taxes going back only two years. But that November, the window was more than doubled by a little-noticed provision in a bill Mr. Obama signed as part of the Great Recession recovery effort. Now business owners could request full refunds of taxes paid in the prior four years, and 50 percent of those from the year before that.

So, if you have any issue with the way Trump got a refund and then didn’t have to pay more, blame Barack Obama; it was perfectly legal because of the law that he signed. So Democrats really can’t attack Trump for using a law they put in place that he was perfectly entitled to use. Bottom line? I want someone who actually has the business acumen to employ what he can within the law, that’s the guy I want in charge of the economy.

Another big item to put paid to Democratic collusion theories — the NY Times found no previously unknown ties to Russia in the records. Or anything apparently illegal. That was another thing which Democrats have been hoping to find and that just got blown apart big time.

Now, the President has disputed the accuracy of some of what the New York Times has said. No doubt he’s bothered that someone illegally leaked the information. But seriously, not only doesn’t it seem to be troubling, it looks on first blush like it puts paid to all the Democratic conspiracy theories against him.

So nice job, New York Times!

If this is the big pre-debate 'gotcha' that the Democrats and their allies in Big Media had in mind, it’s a bit of a flop. //

The New York Times published an article Sunday evening analyzing several years of tax returns filed by President Donald Trump. This illegal leak of the president’s tax returns revealed nothing we didn’t already know about the Trump business hydra: It is complicated, has a lot of expenses that generate tax deductions, and hires very smart tax advisers to make the whole thing work with as low a legal tax liability as possible. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Democrats also tried this line of attack against Trump in the 2016 debates.

Because most media will breeze over it, it’s important to pause and note the criminal illegality of this story. It is a federal crime for any federal, state, or local government employee to release a tax return without the consent of the taxpayer. Ditto for tax lawyers, CPAs, enrolled agents, and other tax professionals. Interestingly, it’s also illegal to print or publish tax returns or information from them. Section 7213 of the Internal Revenue Code prescribes that each violation here is a felony punishable by $5,000 and/or five years in federal prison, plus the cost of prosecution. Federal employees so convicted are to lose their jobs. //

Turning to the particulars of the tax return, there simply isn’t much here. There’s certainly no smoking gun, nothing that on its face is illegal in some way. The portrait that emerges is one of a very aggressive, wheeler-dealer businessman with a thousand fingers in a thousand pies. Trump allocates money in a wide array of business ventures, generating tax deductions that offset income from these and other enterprises.

Trump himself in the piece describes his approach as “truthful hyperbole,” which is one of those wonderful phrases like “trust but verify,” “non-denial denial,” and “unknown unknowns.” In this case, the phrase tells me, as someone who has had all sorts of tax clients over the years, that the president loves the game. He is always looking for his next business venture and wants to plow all his profits from other lines of work into the next chapter of his life. //

The bottom line is that the Trump business empire is basically a closed circuit — profits from business A are used to prop up business B and acquire business C. That creates a lot of deductions that offset the profit, which in turn means that in some years, very little tax is owed.

Does that make Trump a tax cheat? Not by itself, certainly. The IRS or other tax authorities are of course free to challenge the legality of this capital loss or that consulting expense, but that’s a matter of analyzing facts and circumstances case by case. There’s nothing wrong with taking these deductions in and of themselves. These types of news stories tend to cherry-pick particular tax years and tax deductions that fit the narrative and ignore high tax payment years that do not. //

Here is where the story really falls down. It does not inform the reader about the crucial distinction between tax evasion (illegally misrepresenting income and deductions to fraudulently lessen tax liability) and tax avoidance (legally using available deductions and other tax benefits to legitimately lessen tax liability). This difference is the axle upon which the entire story turns.

Unfortunately for the New York Times, all it has managed to uncover is a very aggressive taxpayer working with a very talented team of tax professionals pushing every legal tax avoidance strategy they can muster. God bless them for it. //

Businesses can and should deduct all ordinary and necessary expenses against business revenue to arrive at business profit — period, end of story. To deny this is to implicitly endorse a gross receipts tax on business income, something tax experts of all persuasions will tell you is the singularly most unfair way to tax businesses.

Eight Percent > Four Percent //

federal tax revenues increased by four percent in 2019, reaching the highest level in American history. Republicans cut taxes (every single Democrat voted no), the economy grew, employment soared, and the federal government is now collecting more money in tax revenues than ever before. And yet, that same federal government is running a growing deficit, with the debt mushrooming, all in a period of prosperity and relative peace. Why? It's manifestly not because of the tax cuts. It's because Uncle Sam is spending way too much, with the top drivers of the debt being...unsustainable and ballooning entitlement programs, and interest payments on the debt. This is basic stuff to people who pay attention to our worsening fiscal mess, but it's diametrically opposed to the rhetoric of leading Democrats.

The Financial Report of the United States Government (Financial Report) provides the President, Congress, and the American people with a comprehensive view of the federal government's finances, i.e., its financial position and condition, revenues and costs, assets and liabilities, and other obligations and commitments. The Financial Report also discusses important financial issues and significant conditions that may affect future operations, including the need to achieve fiscal sustainability over the medium and long term.

File the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial
Accounts (FBAR) as an Individual

This section applies only to individuals filing the FBAR (FinCEN Report 114) through FinCEN's BSA E-Filing System. An FBAR filer is considered an individual when he/she personally owns (or jointly owns with a spouse) a reportable foreign financial account that requires the filing of an FBAR for the reportable year. A filer is also considered an individual if they wish to file an FBAR on their own behalf to report signature or other authority they have over a reportable foreign financial account that they do not have a financial interest in.

Every small business that sells online now can be subject to the more than 10,000 different taxing jurisdictions around the country. //

Congress can fix this problem by protecting all businesses that aren’t physically present in a state from that state’s revenue collectors.

Big businesses such as Amazon and Walmart already pay taxes in every state because they have stores and distribution centers all across the country. A physical presence requirement is the most straightforward and commonsense small business protection Congress could adopt. //

Some states are sending out collection notices for “uncollected” taxes from years before the 2018 ruling that overturned previous protections. Small business owners are on the hook for potentially crippling retroactive tax bills. //

Proposals that force sellers to track their sales to the consumer’s destination and comply with laws in other jurisdictions are fundamentally at odds with the principles of local government and American federalism.

The Supreme Court got it right 25 years ago, and it was wrong to second-guess that decision. Congress now must step in.

There’s still no good reason to expand the reach of state taxes beyond their borders. This may seem to level the retail tax playing field, but instead it has created new burdens on America’s most vulnerable businesses and undermined government accountability.

State legislatures picked up where they left off following an active 2019 on Internet sales tax (IST). States have swiftly moved to adopt laws requiring out of state sellers without a physical presence in their state to collect and remit sales tax in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on South Dakota v. Wayfair. Nearly every state with sales tax has adopted a remote seller law, and 39 jurisdictions (38 states plus Washington, DC) have extended collection requirements to “marketplace facilitators” like eBay.

In states with marketplace facilitator laws, eBay is required to calculate, collect, and remit sales tax on behalf of sellers for items shipped to customers in the state.

Involuntary denied boarding compensation paid in cash that's 4 times your one-way fare is clearly not a rebate on your ticket price, it exceeds the ticket price. And yet it isn't taxable... //

1099: Miscellaneous payments of less than $600 are generally not reported to the IRS. IRS flags are triggered when they receive a 1099-MISC and the taxpayer does not report it. It seems that the airlines do not report denied boarding payments to the IRS. Airlines would need tax information from passengers to issue 1099s, and to my knowledge that information is not collected.

Transportation Taxes: Tickets purchased with vouchers are not taxed for one additional transaction, the view being that taxes were paid on the original foregone flight and doing so again would be double-taxed. AA, for instance, says that transportation vouchers are tax-exempt unless they have the code OU (full refund on unused flight). However, if someone uses a $300 voucher for a $200 flight and then a $100 flight, the passenger will pay transportation taxes on the $100 flight.

The holiday season is in full swing, and tens of millions of Americans will be heading to airports to travel to spend time with friends and family. The 18-day stretch beginning on roughly Dec. 20, represents the busiest 18 days of the air travel year. Last year, an estimated 45.7 million Americans…

Individuals Filing the Report of Foreign Bank
and Financial Accounts (FBAR)

THIS PAGE IS FOR INDIVIDUAL FBAR FILERS ONLY

To file the FBAR as an individual, you must personally and/or jointly own a reportable foreign financial account that requires the filing of an FBAR (FinCEN Report 114) for the reportable year. There is no need to register to file the FBAR as an individual.

Taxpayers who do not need to use either the OVDP or the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures to file delinquent or amended tax returns to report and pay additional tax, but who:

• have not filed a required Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) (FinCEN Form 114, previously Form TD F 90-22.1),
• are not under a civil examination or a criminal investigation by the IRS, and
• have not already been contacted by the IRS about the delinquent FBARs

should file the delinquent FBARs according to the FBAR instructions.
Follow these steps to resolve delinquent FBARS

• Review the instructions
• Include a statement explaining why you are filing the FBARs late
• File all FBARs electronically at FinCEN
• On the cover page of the electronic form, select a reason for filing late
• If you are unable to file electronically, contact FinCEN's Regulatory Help line at 1-800-949-2732 or 1-703-905-3975 (if calling from outside the United States) to determine possible alternatives to electronic filing.

The IRS will not impose a penalty for the failure to file the delinquent FBARs if you properly reported on your U.S. tax returns, and paid all tax on, the income from the foreign financial accounts reported on the delinquent FBARs, and you have not previously been contacted regarding an income tax examination or a request for delinquent returns for the years for which the delinquent FBARs are submitted.

FBARs will not be automatically subject to audit but may be selected for audit through the existing audit selection processes that are in place for any tax or information returns.