Numerous banking institutions, insurers, and financial trade organizations support the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (“FASB”) proposed response to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In comment letters on Proposed Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2018-210, Income Statement — Reporting Comprehensive Income (Topic 220): Reclassification of Certain Tax Effects From Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income, groups like the American Bankers Association urged the FASB to approve its proposed amendment. Proposed ASU No. 2018-210 aims to reduce the accounting effects of complying with the new tax law and simplify financial statements for investors. Read More

In last month’s newsletter we presented some general facets of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). In this article, we will explore some portions of the new bill in greater detail.

In general, the law cuts corporate tax rates permanently and individual tax rates temporarily. It permanently removes the individual mandate, a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, and it changes other policies in dramatic ways, such as the SALT deduction (which will be explained in more detail below). Read More

All taxpayers, whether individuals or not, may deduct as business expenses the costs relating to tax matters that are ordinary and necessary in the conduct of their trade or business under Section 162 of the Internal Revenue Code.

However, certain non-business expenses are also deductible under Section 212, “Expenses for production of income.”  Notwithstanding the somewhat limiting title of Section 212, subsection (3) currently permits a deduction for non-business expenses that can have nothing to do with the production of income, namely expenses paid or incurred “in connection with the determination, collection or refund of any tax.”  Read More

President Trump signed the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” into law on Dec. 22, as noted and summarized from a report by Investopedia. The Senate passed the bill on Dec. 20 by a party-line vote of 51 to 48. The House passed the bill later in the day by a vote of 224 to 201. No House Democrats supported the bill, and 12 Republicans voted no, most of them representing California, New York and New Jersey. (Taxpayers who itemize and rely on the state and local tax deduction in these high-tax states will have their state and local tax deductions capped at $10,000 or $5,000 if Married Filing Separate). Read More

The boom in United States real estate caused by foreign investors is about to get bigger as a result of greatly reduced U.S. income taxes for nonresident aliens and foreign corporations.1

Because of the new Trump tax law, (“the Trump Tax Bill”) a foreign investor could receive a forty percent (40%) reduction in the U.S. income tax of his or her gains and income from their real estate investments. For those foreign investors who already were invested in U.S. real estate, their after tax returns could now be forty percent more valuable without raising a finger.2 Read More