Tax Season - The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Save your hard earned dollars with proactive tax planning.

Happy New Year! With the holiday season in the rearview mirror, it is now time for the most wonderful time of the year - Tax Season. With the New Year still "new", now is the time to start thinking about not only tax preparation, but also tax planning. To do that, let's take a look at some past tax years to bring us up to speed. 2013 was a big year for taxes. Congress passed legislation averting the so-called "fiscal cliff," and many of the "Obamacare" changes took effect. While few of us who watched the process would consider it Washington's finest hour, we at least had answers to many of the questions that had made proactive planning more difficult over the past few years.  

What a difference a year makes! 2014 started off with partisan bickering, and ended with even more gridlock. It took Congress until December 16 to pass "tax extender" legislation, reinstating tax breaks that expired all the way back on January 1. (Those same provisions expire on January 1, 2015 -- meaning Congress will have to do it all over again next year!) About the only thing they could actually agree on was cutting the IRS budget back to pre-2009 levels, which will only make the taxation bureaucracy even harder to navigate. 

President Obama and Congressional leaders have said that corporate tax reform is "on the table" for the final two years of the current administration. However, amid the continuing partisan wrangling over the budget, and the approaching 2016 election, there appears to be little appetite on Capitol Hill for significant changes to the personal tax rules. 

If you would like to get more information on the small business changes that will affect your tax situation, be sure to stop by our small business tax seminar on Jan. 20th. We will review what all the "tax extender" legislation has to do with your small business and more so that you can make proactive tax planning decisions now. 

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