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Most Recent Posts

Hobby Lobby Owner Loses Income Tax Deduction

Other than the indication that they sure have a lot of confidence in their son, the only other item of some interest is buried in the boilerplate section.  The beneficiaries of the trust are the descendants of the Greens, with one possible exception -“Any child or descendant who is born to persons out of wedlock shall not be considered as a “child” or “descendant” of such persons for purposes of this Trust Agreement ”  (There is a kind of shotgun marriage exception to the proscription).  Regardless it seems that disinheriting out-of-wedlock descendants does not align well with a strong pro-life view, but maybe that is just me.  To be fair the provision is boilerplate. I was presented with a trust instrument that included it for my own meager assets and had it modified.

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Cooperatives May Provide End Run Around Limitations On 20% Business Deduction

I think that one of the reasons that the concept has not taken hold very well in the land of the free and the home of the brave is that the people with entrepreneurial personalities who can really make a business go do not have a lot of patience with democratic governance.

That was the story with Fraternal Communion Number One founded by Adin Ballou.  The enterprise was pretty successful but the members with the largest capital ended up taking the enterprise over and turning it into the Town of Hopedale, Massachusetts, and Draper Industries.  It is an interesting story, which I shared in this piece and this one.

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Real Estate Investment Trusts, Publicly Traded Partnerships And The 20% Business Deduction

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) and Publicly Traded Partnerships (PTP)  get special treatment in the Tax Cuts And Jobs Act (TCJA)- Sorry I just can’t call it tax reform. Maybe tax deform, but that sounds silly.  TCJA repealed Section 199, a kind of freebie 9% deduction, that created a frenzy of gaming in somewhat limited circles – Brewing coffee is manufacturing. I mean who knew? -and replaced it with a much broader 20% deduction (Section 199A). To qualify for the deduction your trade or business has to be paying people W-2 wages or have depreciable assets if your taxable income exceeds a threshold.  REIT dividends and PTP flow-through income get the 20% deduction with no strings.

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Senate Snuck A Tax Break For Subsidy Farmers Into Tax Cuts And Jobs Act

But where is the break for subsidy farmers?  In adding 461(l), the Act suspends 461(j).  Section 469(j) was a hoop that is between at-risk and passive activities, that I ignored in my original analysis.  I could say that I ignored it, because it is not generally applicable, but that would be lying.  I ignored it because it was not something I knew about.  Not a lot of amber waves of grain in Central Massachusetts. Anyway if you are getting any of a variety of agricultural subsidies that our hardy self-reliant farmers might get and like old Calhoun there still manage to lose money farming, 461(j) limits your loss and kicks it into the next year in a manner similar to 469.

The threshold is the greater of $300,000 or the aggregate net farming profits in the last five years.  Under 461(j), Calhoun in both of the scenarios above would have $700,000 of his farm loss suspended.  So being subject to 461(l) is a somewhat better deal for the salaried Calhoun and a home run for the one with the dealerships.

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20% Deduction – Let The Games Begin

You probably think that this fantastic blog is the result of my individual skill and its success is tied into my great reputation (My twitter followers grew by the scores in the last couple of weeks).  Well you are wrong.  I have a fantastic research service and this really cool three screen computer setup.  And my partner in business and life makes sure I eat a healthy diet and is always asking me questions that spark my creativity.  With those resources, just about anybody could have a tax blog as good as this one.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Top Tax Concerns Of My Readers In 2017

In selecting what I write about I have three criteria – practical advice, humor and matter for reflection. The latter catch-all category represents the ways in which taxation intersects other important issues.  There is probably some topic that does not have some sort of a tax angle to it, but I can’t think of one.  The other principle is that generally, I don’t write about something unless I have something to add or have adopted that issue as something I follow regularly.

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Earnings Havoc Unleashed By Tax Act

Earnings Havoc Unleashed By Tax Act

One of the biggest changes was about how changes in “enacted rate” are accounted for.  A significant part of the computation of the provision for income taxes concerns deferred tax assets and liabilities.  Very simply if you write something off or recognize income at a different point in time in figuring your reported earnings than you do in figuring your taxable income,  you will end up setting up an asset or liability to recognize tax benefits that you will be taking later or took sooner – deferred tax assets (DTA) or deferred tax liablities (DTL).  As timing difference reverse DTA are amortized making for higher income tax expense in later years compared to what is on the return and DTL are relieved making for lower income tax expense.

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