estate tax - The S Corporation Association

Middle-Class Tax Increases on the Horizon

Last Wednesday’s The Hill included a comprehensive overview of the exploding spending and deficit picture and calls into question President Obama’s ability to live up to his long-held promise not to raise middle class taxes. It’s worth a look.

For the past half-year, your S-CORP team has focused on President Obama’s long-stated goal to pay for health care reform and his other spending priorities by raising taxes on American families making more than $250,000 per year, all while cutting taxes for middle-class families.

With the Federal deficit approaching $2 trillion this year, however, just how does one expand government, reduce the deficit, …

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admin2019-02-06T17:21:57+00:00April 21, 2009|

Budget Process and Reconciliation

Both the House and the Senate completed their respective budget resolutions last week. The plan now is for the two bodies to get together to resolve any differences and produce a single budget in the form of a conference report. We expect most of those discussions to take place over the next couple of weeks.

One of the key questions for budget conferees is whether or not they will include reconciliation instructions for health care reform and climate change. As S-CORP readers know, the virtue of reconciliation is that it lowers the bar to pass something in the Senate from a …

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admin2019-02-06T17:22:35+00:00April 8, 2009|

Congressional Budget Takes Form

Lots of budget related news in recent days with implications for small business taxpayers. First, the Congressional Budget Office weighed in last week with its analysis of the Obama budget outline and estimated that the Administration’s proposals, if enacted intact, would double the overall deficit over the next ten years.mThe numbers are truly staggering and should scare any reasonable person who plans to be a taxpayer over the next several decades. Starting with a deficit of around $1.8 trillion this year — …

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admin2019-02-06T17:22:35+00:00March 25, 2009|

Estate Tax Fix Poses Threat for Family Businesses

As we have noted, the stars appear to have aligned for a big estate tax compromise later this year, most likely to be focused on freezing the 2009 rules for at least a year. This means the current top tax rate of 45 percent and $3.5 million exclusion will stay the same for a while. But there’s lots of mischief that can take place under those broad levels.

As tax reformers will tell you, the base is just as important in determining your tax burden as the rates.

With that in mind, several S-Corp allies have pointed out legislation introduced by Congressman …

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admin2019-02-06T17:22:35+00:00February 20, 2009|

Estate Tax Compromise Under Development

Looks like Congressional Democrats and President-elect Obama’s economic team are already beginning work on legislation to prevent a full repeal of the estate tax in 2010. The Wall Street Journal reports that President Obama’s plan will come out in February as part of his FY 2010 budget proposal and could be acted on by the House and Senate soon after. As the Journal reports:

The estate tax would be locked in permanently at the rate and exemption levels that took effect this year. That would exempt estates of $3.5 million — $7 …

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admin2019-02-06T17:22:36+00:00January 14, 2009|