2 Wisconsin Circle Suite 700, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 | mprofit@profitlawfirm.com | (301) 882-3670

Building Legacies that Last Estate Planning and Elder Law

Learn How We Can Help You
Read Our Blog
Get Our eNewsletter

Tag: Taxes

Posted on

A Good Time to Get an Estate Plan

Bigstock-Elder-Couple-With-Bills-3557267[1]While you are busy doing your taxes this year, it is also a good time to think about getting an estate plan.

Every year at about this time, Americans breathe a big sigh of relief when they seal their tax returns and send them off to the IRS or hit "send" to file electronically. The sigh is even bigger, if the envelope did not include a check written to the government and the tax filer can expect to receive a refund in the next couple of months.

No one likes doing their own taxes.

When they are finally done, the last thing that most people want to do is to deal with more financial issues. However, it is a good idea to do one more thing, as CTV News points out in "The mistakes of not having a will."

When you finish doing your taxes, you should get an estate plan or update your plan, if you already have one.

To do your taxes, you had to get out many of your financial documents. You have also been thinking about how much money you have and where it is all located. Doing those things is one of the first steps to getting an estate plan.

You could put all of your financial documents away and think about other things.  However, if you later decided to do estate planning, you will have to start all over again.

Why not just go ahead and get an estate plan now, while things are still on your mind?

Reference: CTV News (March 21, 2017) "The mistakes of not having a will."

 

Posted on

IRS Audit Strategy Targets the Wealthy

Bigstock-Elder-Couple-With-Bills-3557267[1]In 2017 it is expected that the IRS will focus its auditing efforts on the wealthy, in order to get the most that they can out of their limited enforcement budget.

It used to be that the IRS was actually more likely to target middle class taxpayers for an audit than wealthy people. It is more difficult to audit the wealthy because they can afford to hire expert lawyers and accountants to fight the auditors.

However, years of cuts to the IRS budget have led to a change in tactics.

The IRS now prefers to target the wealthy for audits, so the agency gets the most bang for its buck. There is simply more money that the IRS can get by auditing the wealthy than by making sure middle class Americans have filed all of their taxes correctly.

This trend is expected to continue in 2017, according to Private Wealth in “This Year’s Audits Are Bad News For The Rich.”

The IRS is expected to go after common ways the wealthy often lower their tax bills and challenge  them to prove that they have done everything correctly.

For example, a charitable deduction over a certain limit might trigger the IRS to send a letter demanding proof of the donation. Reporting that money was put into a 529 education savings plan over a certain amount, could also trigger an automatic letter as could a whole lot of other common practices.

It is important that wealthy people get together with their estate planning attorneys and accountants to make sure they have done everything correctly to lower their tax bills, if they want to avoid problems with the IRS.

Reference: Private Wealth (Feb. 28, 2017) “This Year’s Audits Are Bad News For The Rich.”