Julian Block

MY CLIENT ROSTER includes investors who have suffered enormous losses on their stock market investments. To ease their discomfort, I steer the conversation to what they’re entitled to deduct for capital losses. While the IRS imposes strict limits on simply writing off such losses, I assure my clients that there are perfectly legal, IRS-blessed opportunities to sidestep these restrictions.
The big hurdle is a deduction cap of $3,000 for both married couples and single filers.

SOME OF MY CLIENTS are political junkies; others don’t follow politics. Either way, they’re mostly aware that the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, overhauled the rules for medical insurance. But lots of them are unaware that ACA’s overhaul also significantly changed some tax laws—and those changes adversely affected their pocketbooks.
I remind my clients that ACA included a provision that increased Medicare taxes for employees with high incomes. Similarly, it increased self-employment taxes for freelancers with high incomes.

WHEN TALKING WITH home sellers, I’ve long ceased being surprised by how many routinely overlook or fail to take maximum advantage of a valuable tax break: the exclusion when unloading their principal residence.
The exclusion—meaning you pay no taxes—is capped at $500,000 for married couples filing jointly and $250,000 for singles and married couples filing separate returns. I frequently need to remind sellers that these exclusions apply to profits, not sales prices.

MANY SENIORS needlessly incur hefty penalties or overpay their taxes. The reason: They don’t understand the strict rules that govern removing money from their tax-deferred retirement accounts.
The IRS sets the year you turn age 70½ as the deadline to begin taking RMDs, short for required minimum distributions. (For 2020 and later years, the starting age is 72.) The feds allow some leeway for the first of your RMDs. But this is a tricky exception.

DON’T GIVE INVESTING advice to clients. That’s something I’ve repeatedly learned as a tax lawyer. Still, when financial markets gyrate, many clients want advice about taxes, especially the seemingly simple rules for capital gains—and I have a longstanding fondness for eating three times a day.
Let’s start with the basics. Take an individual who sells an investment that she has owned for more than 12 months. Any increase in its value from its cost basis is taxed at her long-term capital gains rate—15% for most individuals,

WHEN IT COMES TO your home, ignorance about taxes isn’t bliss—and it could be disastrous. I often field tax questions from homeowners. Most don’t understand how they’re affected by continuously changing tax rules. Even worse, they’re totally unaware that the rules have changed.
Want to save thousands of dollars? What follows are reminders of how to sidestep tax pitfalls and take maximum advantage of frequently missed—but perfectly legal—opportunities:
Mortgage points. Do you plan to purchase a new dwelling around year-end?