The Estate Tax: An Economic Justice No-Brainer

Economic inequality is one of our biggest problems as a society, and it’s ruining our health. But it’s hard to write headlines about something that gets incrementally worse every day, instead of making a dramatic, newsworthy entrance. Bernie Sander’s campaign struck a chord by focusing on income inequality, and Trump garnered popularity by addressing workers on the losing end of the economy (though, I would argue, not with actual solutions).

I wish I could write a column about the perfect solution to income inequality. But a problem with many causes, needs multiple solutions. A lot of opportunity exists within the tax code to address these problems. The current administration either views income inequality as a benefit to society that should be boosted through the tax code, or simply does not care about anyone outside the 1%. We know this, because virtually everything in Trump’s tax proposal is regressive and would worsen income inequality.

There’s no shortage of topics to tackle with regards to the proposal (if that’s what you can even call the incomplete bullet list the White House sent out) but I’d like to focus on what I think should be an economic justice rallying cry: The Estate Tax. Read more...

Set up For Your Best Year Ever: A Tax Day How-To

Here we are at Tax Day. Your taxes are filed. (They aren’t? Here’s an IRS extension form – postmark it today. You’ll need one for your state, too.)

Last year you vowed to get your stuff in order. Then suddenly the tax deadline was upon you, and you scrambled through the process, and weren’t as careful as you intended to be. You suspected you should have been paying estimated quarterly taxes all year, but didn’t, and now your tax bill is surprisingly high.

You meant to set some money aside in a retirement account, but that shocking tax bill meant you didn’t have any cash to do it.

You suspect that there were deductions you missed.

If you’re being honest, your books were a mess (if you’re thinking “I need to keep books?” go back and read this.)

Now that the time pressure is off, let’s take a look at how you can make this year better. Plus some discounts on apps that can help you.  Read more...

Charitable Deductions for You, Me and Warren Buffet

Here’s a fact that may surprise you: lower income people give far more to charity than people in the upper income brackets. And yet the laws for charitable giving bend over backwards to accommodate high-income charitable givers, and often don’t allow low income people to get a deduction at all.

The reason is that only people who itemize their deductions get to claim charitable deductions, and lower income households usually don’t itemize. Here’s a quick primer:

Every person filing taxes gets a personal exemption of $4050 for every taxpayer and dependant claimed on her return. In English, this means that everybody’s first  $4050 of income is automatically tax-free. If you are married with three kids, you only pay tax on any money you make over $20,250 ($4050 personal exemption x 5 people).That’s true for you, me, and Warren Buffett.  read more...

Some Real Numbers for Artists on the ACA Repeal

When I went back to school for accounting, I never thought I’d get an education in healthcare. But the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) forced tax preparers like me into learning about our healthcare system, because most of the credits and penalties are reconciled on the tax return. As an accountant for artists, I see the direct benefits of the ACA on my clients. I am required, per the ACA, to find out if my clients were covered by health insurance all year, and if not, I calculate the penalty for each month they weren’t. I record the premiums my clients pay, which can be a big deduction for a freelance arts worker. And I see the monthly subsidies that they get, because I reconcile them on the annual tax return (the “Premium Tax Credit”). I also calculate the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax and the additional .9% Medicare tax for my very highest-income clients – these are the additional taxes on the top income earners that effectively pay for the subsidies provided by the ACA. This amount is only calculated on the very top dollars of their income and it hits a proportionately tiny slice of my clients.

Given this background, I have some insights on what the new Republican proposal, the “American Health Care Act” (ACHA, aka Trumpcare) would do to you, me, and our federal budget. It’s not good.  Read more...

The SEP IRA: A Lovesong

We freelancers pay a lot of tax. We don’t just pay an income tax rate of anywhere from 0 to 39% on our freelance income – we also pay a flat 15.3% self-employment tax, no matter what our income bracket. Without tax planning, this can be a huge bite.

As artists and cultural workers, our freelancer tax strategy is generally to reduce the amount of our taxable self-employment income as much as legally possible. Tax planning is hard, because it’s about saving small bits in many places. There are few silver bullets. But the closest thing there is to a silver bullet is tax-sheltered retirement savings. Read full article