Homesteads in Trust Safe from Creditors If… In 2019, the Bankruptcy Court in San Antonio issued an opinion in the case of In re Cyr holding that a home inside a trust was not protected from creditors under the Property Code and the Texas Homestead Exemption. The reason was that the language in the trust…
July 15 Obamacare Deadline – Protective Claims for Refunds
I saw chatter on the ACTEC listserv, did a general search for the issue, and found that many tax professionals are looking at filing “protective claims for refund” in connection with the taxes that are a part of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”). In 2012, the Supreme Court said that a mandate requiring individuals to…
NO MORE DELAY – July 15 is IRS Deadline
The IRS is trying to reach everyone to make clear that the postponement of several tax deadlines until Wednesday, July 15, 2020, is it. There have been some stories in the press suggesting the IRS was going to postpone that date. However, there are no more postponements. The July 15 deadline generally applies to all…
IRS Delays FILING and Payment
Last week, some news outlets were incorrectly reporting that you didn’t have to file your income tax returns or pay your income taxes until July 15, 2020. That was wrong. In IRS Notice 2020-17 issued last Wednesday, the IRS delayed only the payment, but not the filing. Realizing the awkward situation that created, on Friday,…
IRS Delays Payment, Not Filing
It’s in the news, and some of the news is wrong. Here is a link to the actual IRS Notice 2020-17: Part III – Administrative, Procedural, and Miscellaneous The info that the news media has wrong is that you don’t have to file your tax returns due April 15. That is not correct. Notice 2020-17…
Kiddie Tax Change
Mickey Davis (of Houston) pointed out that Title V, Section 501, of the new funding legislation changes the Kiddie Tax (found in Section 1 of the Code). Quick background: Internal Revenue Code Section 1(g) applied a tax on certain children with unearned income. That was typically called the “kiddie tax.” If the child had been…
BIG (?) Retirement Plan Changes
If you have a retirement plan (IRA, 401(k), profit sharing plan, etc.) payable to your children or grandchildren (or trusts for them), this could be a VERY BIG CHANGE for you. As busy as life is, this deserves your attention now. Congress has been working on keeping the government open. To do that, it needed…
2020 Tax Rates Published
On November 6, 2019, the IRS published Rev.Proc. 2019-44 which contains all of the inflation adjusted rates and amounts for 2020. These include the tax rate tables for use in computing income, kiddie tax rates, capital gains rates, adoption credit, lifetime learning credit, etc. For example, one notable change is the standard deduction for married…
Inflation Adjusted 2020 Figures Announced
The IRS has announced the inflation adjustments for the estate and gift tax exclusion, the generation-skipping transfer tax exemption, the gift tax exclusion and other estate planning numbers for 2020. The estate and gift tax exclusion amounts will be $11,580,000. This year, it is $11,400,000, so that is an increase of $180,000. The generation-skipping transfer…
Taxpayer Wins in Kaestner – Beneficiaries’ Residence Alone is Insufficient to Justify State Tax on Trust Income
On June 21, 2019, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberly Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust (no. 18-457)(https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-457_2034.pdf). The issue in the case was whether the state of North Carolina could tax the income of the trust based solely on the North Carolina residence of…