, Author at The S Corporation Association

AMT and Other Updates

Just after Thanksgiving, we put together a list of the must-pass items that Congress would turn to in December, including the AMT/Extender package, omnibus spending bill, farm bill, S-CHIP, energy bill, and Medicare Doctors payment legislation.

With just a few hours to go in this congressional session, it looks like many of these items will clear the Congress “in one form or another” and be sent to the President. In just the last day, the two bodies dealt with the omnibus spending bill (including $70 billion to fund the war in Iraq), a six-month extension of doctors’ payments under Medicare and …

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admin2019-02-06T18:43:58+00:00December 19, 2007|

Senate Passes AMT

The United States Senate last evening passed a one-year extension of the so-called AMT patch – a higher AMT exemption to protect 20 million or so taxpayers from being subjected to the AMT on April 15^th. This bill did not include any offsets and it did not include any additional extenders, either.

Senate Republicans, as well as some Democrats – including Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus – have observed that, since much of the revenue collected by the AMT is accidental and was not intended by Congress, it is nonsensical to insist that protecting taxpayers from the tax should be offset …

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admin2019-02-06T18:43:58+00:00December 7, 2007|

The End is Near (of the First Session)

Congress returns Monday with lots to do and just three weeks to do it. Here’s the list of must-pass items we’ve identified:

AMT Patch
Tax Extenders (Including the S Corporation Charitable Provision)
S-CHIP Reauthorization
All the Spending Bills
Increase Doctor Payments under Medicare

That’s enough to fill two months of session, let alone 21 days, but there’s more. In addition to these items that most observers agree must get done, there is also a long list of priorities that the majority would like to address before they go home for the holidays, including an energy bill, an agriculture bill, and more.

How will it all work out? …

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admin2019-02-06T18:43:58+00:00November 28, 2007|

Death of Death Tax Repeal?

Yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on the estate tax resulted in some good theatrics, but little in the way of comfort to those family businesses attempting to plan their way past the tax.

Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, the world’s third wealthiest man, was on hand to lend his support to the tax. Mr. Buffett argued that “dynastic wealth” is on the rise, putting lower income Americans at a great disadvantage. The estate tax is necessary, he observed, to help break up these large concentrations of wealth.

Mr. Buffett failed to recognize the impact the tax has on family-owned businesses. Nor did he …

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admin2019-02-06T18:43:59+00:00November 15, 2007|

Higher Tax Rates on Horizon

We’ve had numerous conversations in the past couple of weeks with S corporation owners about the tax outlook for the next couple of years, and it’s becoming apparent that the S-Corp community is underestimating the threat of higher tax rates on the horizon. With that in mind, here’s our best assessment of what to worry about, and when to worry about it.

First, in case you have not heard, all the major tax relief provisions enacted since 2001 will expire at the end of 2010 unless Congress acts to extend them. For S corporations, that means higher tax rates on your …

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admin2019-02-06T18:43:59+00:00November 7, 2007|