Client letters:
2018 Tax Preparation
How Will the Tax Reform Impact My Taxes
While the changes in Congress creates uncertainty for President Trump’s proposed Tax Reform 2.0, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Tax Reform) that was passed in December of 2017 will impact our 2018 income taxes.
2018 Year End Tax Planning Tips
- If you are required to take required minimum distributions (RMD) for 2018 from your retirement accounts, make sure that you fulfilled your requirement by year end. RMD is required if you are over 70 ½. Consider a direct contribution of RMD amount to a charity to fulfil your charitable goals.
- If you have investments with an unrealized loss, consider whether you should realize those losses by selling the investments before the end of the year. If you like the stock and want to buy it back, be aware of the wash sale rules, which is 30 days before and after the sale.
- To the extent you can control the timing of your medical expenses, group them into the same tax year so they will exceed the yearly threshold to deduct them. The threshold is 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.
- Be sure to check your flexible spending account balance. Depending on your flexible spending account you may be allowed to carry over $500 to the next year.
- If you are thinking about making gifts to charities, consider appreciated securities. With the increase in standard deduction, if you are borderline with the standard deduction vs. itemized, you may want to consider “bunching” your donations in certain years, so that in a year of high donation, you take the higher itemized deduction; in a year of low donation, you take the standard deduction. If you are unsure which charities to give yet, or won’t be itemizing next year, but want the tax deduction this year, consider a donor advised fund (DAF).
- If you paid household employees $2,100 or more, remember the payroll tax filings are due by 1/31/2019.
- The annual gift exclusion amount for 2018 is $15,000 per person; it remains the same for 2019.
- If this is a low income year for you, consider converting your regular IRA to Roth IRA before 12/31/18. Please keep in mind the conversion is a taxable event, so careful planning is needed. Also note the Tax Reform now disallows recharacterization (undo the conversion).
For more tax planning tips and recent tax updates, please visit our website at www.bolsoncpa.com or contact us.
Getting Ready for Taxes
We want to make tax filings easy for you. We have developed the schedule below for you to use so the return preparation process can be efficient and effective.
| January 14, 2019 |
If you would like to meet between February 1 and March 8, please contact Dana, or request your appointment from our website. A meeting is not required for us to prepare your return |
| January 22, 2019 |
Organizers and engagement letters in PDF are uploaded to your portal for you to access. Please use the tax organizers to minimize errors caused by omitted data. Please print the engagement letters, review and sign them and send to us with your tax data. If you like them mailed to you, please contact Dana. If you requested them mailed for 2017, we will continue to do so. No need to call again. |
| February 1 - March 8, 2019 |
Tax information meetings for those of you that would like to meet in person; encouraged for new clients. You are not required to have all of your data at time of the meeting. You are not required to meet in order for us to prepare your return. Other ways to get us your tax data is by uploading your data to the portal, faxing, emailing, mailing or dropping-off. |
| March 15, 2019 |
We must have the bulk of your tax data in order to prepare your tax return for filing by April 15, 2019. |
| April 1, 2019 |
We need your final open items, such as missing K-1s, to complete your return by April 15, 2019. This is also the deadline for you to provide us data if you want us to calculate extension payment(s). |
| April 15, 2019 |
Taxes must be paid, and returns or extensions filed; first 2019 estimated tax payment is due. |
| June 15, 2019 |
Your second 2019 estimated tax payment is due. |
| September 15, 2019 |
Your third 2019 estimated tax payment is due; if you are on extension, we need every last bit of your tax data! |
| October 15, 2019 |
Extended tax returns are due. |
We do our best to work on tax returns whenever we receive your data, but we may not be able to complete returns by IRS deadlines when the data is submitted late. Our turnaround time for completion is 2–3 weeks. The turnaround for tax data received from late February on is typically about 3-4 weeks, therefore, please plan ahead.
We Appreciate Referrals
We appreciate your trust and confidence in us and will take good care of everyone you send us.
Privacy
We respect your privacy. The personal, non-public information we collect about you has been derived from information that you have provided to us directly or indirectly and from transactions with us. We do not disclose personal information about you to anyone outside our firm, except at your specific request, as required by law, or to our software vendors in resolving an IT issue.
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