An enormous opportunity for families to reduce their estate taxes – and in some cases, save millions of dollars – will end on December 31, 2012. If there’s a chance you can take advantage of these savings, it’s wise to act immediately, because unless Congress changes the law, the window of opportunity will close permanently when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. Between now and the end of the year, the lifetime exemption from the
Experienced investors don’t need to be convinced about the inherent volatility of the stock market. Prices seem to soar and plummet regularly. One possible investment strategy for smoothing out the inevitable ups and downs is called “dollar cost averaging.” But this long-standing investment method has as many detractors as proponents. The basic concept is relatively simple. Essentially, you invest a fixed amount of money in shares of the same stock at regular intervals – usually, on
Did you know that this year you can give gifts of up to $13,000 to as many individuals as you want without being liable for gift tax? Normally, any gift you make counts towards your lifetime exemption from gift and estate taxes. That’s so you don’t just give away your estate shortly before death to avoid estate taxes. But each year you can make an unlimited number of gifts free of tax, provided they’re below a
Getting the most benefit from tax deductions requires multi-year planning as well as consideration of the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The multi-year part involves “bunching” your expenses. That’s a strategy where you decide to accelerate or delay payments between different years for itemized deductions such as state income taxes, routine health care, and charitable contributions. You calculate the tax savings for each year and choose the most advantageous time to pay the expense and claim the
If you requested a six-month extension to file your 2011 income tax return, you face a major deadline on October 15. That’s the final date for filing your 2011 return; the IRS does not give filing extensions beyond that date. October 15 is also the deadline for undoing a 2011 conversion of a regular IRA to a Roth IRA. If you did a conversion to a Roth last year, you can switch it back to a
Scholarships, grants, student loans. Learning about the options available to help you pay for your child’s college expenses requires a lot of homework. Here’s one more thing to study: how to coordinate those sources of funds with your overall financial plan. As you probably know, your income and assets, as well as those of your child, affect eligibility for federal student aid. What may not be so obvious is the role early financial planning can play.
More and more companies are using Twitter and other social media sites to promote their businesses. Often, an employee or a group of employees will have the job of tweeting regularly about the company’s products and services. However, this raises the question of what happens if an employee with a Twitter account quits or is fired. The issue came up recently when an employee named Noah Kravitz started tweeting for his employer, a company called PhoneDog.com.
Many companies pay their employees annual bonuses between January 1 and March 15. If it’s done right, the company can take a tax deduction for the amount of the bonuses in the previous year (if it’s a calendar-year tax filer), but the employee doesn’t recognize the income until the year of receipt. But here’s a problem: Many companies also require that employees remain with the company to get a bonus. So if an annual bonus would
Defaults by commercial tenants are on the rise, so more landlords are asking for a guaranty as a condition of a lease. This can be a real burden for a tenant, and can sometimes endanger a deal. However, a guaranty doesn’t have to be an “all-or-nothing” proposition. Often, a tenant can negotiate a partial guaranty that is more easily doable and still satisfies the landlord. Some common tenant counter-offers include: A guaranty that expires after a
A series of back-and-forth e-mails in which two people agree on the terms of a deal could amount to a binding legal contract, even though no formal, “official” contract was ever drawn up or signed. That’s the word from a federal appeals court in Atlanta. Author Rafael Vergara sued the Coca-Cola company, claiming that he had a copyright in the Spanish lyrics that were used in Coke’s advertising during the World Cup soccer tournament. At some
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