Blog

Valeant's acquisition of Bausch & Lomb has certainly been felt in our area, and job cuts have become a sad reality for many. We've had questions from several folks about different topics relating to separation from service with an employer, including healthcare, severance, 401(k) options, etc. With...

I came across this piece yesterday, bemoaning the plight of new college graduates who can expect to retire around age 73. Let's make no bones about it, student loans are no fun to pay back (but better than credit card debt). Regardless, the idea that retirement is unattainable until a later age for...

The Internal Revenue Service announced today that there will be a one to two week delayed start to the 2014 filing season to allow adequate time to program and test tax systems following the 16-day federal government closure. The IRS will start accepting and processing 2013 individual tax returns no...

The New York State STAR exemption provides 2.6 million homeowners an average savings of $700 on their school property tax bill each year. Any owner-occupied primary residence with a household income of $500,000 or less qualifies for this exemption. For the past 15 years the basic STAR automatical...

1. Use the Interactive Tax Assistant. This tool is a tax law resource that covers a number of topics. The ITA is easy to use as it leads you through a series of questions and provides responses to your tax law inquiries. 2. Check your withholding. Use the IRS Withholding Calculator tool to chec...

Over the years, the IRS has closed most so-called "tax loopholes." There is one type of charitable donation that allows you to capture a double benefit. Donating appreciated shares of a stock or fund to a qualified charitable organization will give you two different tax breaks. One, you can deduct...

The IRS will be adjusting many dollar limits and benefits due to inflation. Here are some of the changes starting January 1 , 2013: Deduction for business use of Auto will be 56.5 cents per mile, medical miles increase to 24 cents and charitable miles remain at 14 cents. The annual exclusion for...

The Affordable Care Act was enacted on March 23, 2010. It contains some tax provisions that are currently in effect and others that will be implemented over the next several years. Here is a brief summary of some of the tax related provisions that we will see: Flexible spending accounts will have...

Yesterday, Nina E. Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, released a report to Congress that identifies the priority issues the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) will focus on this year. Below I have cut and pasted a summary of some items presented: Impact of Changes in Tax Law on Taxpayers and the I...

Earlier this month I wrote that historically speaking, government shutdowns often produced little impact on the stock markets; that re-affirming a long-term view of your investment portfolios was the best strategy. Now that the boys and girls in Washington have decided that we'll wait until next yea...