About three weeks ago, the IRS and Treasury issued Rev.Proc. 2024-40 which provides most of the updated 2025 numbers for 36 categories related to all sorts of taxes, which covers everything from tax rate tables to qualified small employer health reimbursement arrangements. If you want a copy of the entire Rev. Proc, please email me…
Category: Tax
Retirement Plan Distributions Required by 12-31
In News Release 2023-246 just issued (“IR 2023-246”), the IRS reminded taxpayers who were born before 1951 that they may have to take a distribution from their retirement plans by December 31. Here is the text of the news release (NOTE: this text had what appeared to be links which were copied directly from the…
QCD Reminder
In News Release 2023-215 issued November 16, 2023 (“IR 2023-215” or simply the “IR”), the IRS reminded taxpayers who are age 70 1/2 or older that now is the time to consider a qualified charitable distribution or QCD. Much of the text below is copied, in some cases verbatim, from the IR. QCDs offer eligible…
NEW Tax Exemptions, Etc for 2024
Treasury and the IRS just issued Revenue Procedure 2023-34 setting forth inflation-adjusted items for 2024 for various Internal Revenue Code provisions. In the estate, gift and generation-skipping tax arena, some of the numbers have been estimated for over a month. Now they are official. The Unified Credit Against Estate Tax provision says the basic exclusion…
New Social Security “Wage Base”
Almost everyone has heard that the Social Security Administration announced an 8.7% increase in Social Security benefits for 2023. While it’s true that the cost of living adjustment will benefit more than 65 million Social Security beneficiaries, what has been seriously under-reported is the change in the Social Security “wage base.” In 2022, the wage…
New 2023 Estate, Gift and GST Exemption Amounts
The IRS has issued Rev.Proc 2022-38. The purpose is to set forth inflation-adjusted items for 2023 for various IRS Code provisions. Of particular interest to people involved in the estate planning field are (1) the new unified credit against estate tax (which affects the gift and GST exemptions as well); (2) the change in the…
RMD Regs Effective Date Postponed
The IRS has issued Notice 2022-53. It addresses the proposed regulations regarding required minimum distributions. The Notice covers more than one issue, but in this email, the main point is that when those proposed regulations were released earlier this year, one of the major issues that arose was the “as least as rapidly” rule. The…
Estimated 2023 Estate, Gift and GST Exemptions and Exclusions
Thomson-Reuters Checkpoint has been tracking inflation figures. Now that the Consumer Price Index has been published for August 2022, they have estimated what inflation will do to the exemptions and exclusions for estate, gift and GST tax. The IRS has not officially issued these figures, but generally speaking, these estimates are fairly accurate. The estate…
Inflation Reduction Act – NO Estate Tax Changes
I have been asked if there appear to be any changes in federal transfer taxes, whether gift taxes, estate taxes or generation-skipping transfer taxes.The direct answer is “no” but, indirectly, with the additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service, it’s likely that enforcement including audits of estate and gift tax returns will increase. Bloomberg…
Delay In IRS Tax Filings
Some of you have seen a recent announcement about delays in the IRS deadline to May 17, 2021. On February 24, 2021, I reported on a delay for tax filings for all Texas residents. You may be asking which applies to you. This email is to give you some clarity you won’t get on television,…