Tag Archives: Taxes

How You Can Deduct Losses in IRA Accounts

downI’m willing to bet that many advisers have clients who opened new IRA accounts over the last several years.  These accounts are likely worth significantly less today than the total amount of original contributions due to the unprecedented market declines experienced over the last two months.

Is there any way to obtain at least some tax benefit from losses in IRA accounts?

Initially, one might think that there’s nothing that can be done to realize any tax benefits due to the losses in IRA accounts.  But in fact, IRA account losses can be recognized and lead to tax benefits for the right kind of clients.

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Blog Action Day: Advisers Must Act to Fight Poverty

Blog Action DayToday’s post is a part of Blog Action Day, a world-wide initiative of all bloggers to discuss global issues and encourage positive dialogue.  For 2008, the Blog Action Day theme is Poverty.

Let’s face the truth.  Financial advisers are some of the best-equipped individuals to help with the financial aspects of poverty.  But as a profession and as a whole, advisers are not unified in their efforts to help those affected by poverty.

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Recharacterize Underwater Roth IRA Conversions

down chartDid you have clients perform an IRA conversion to a Roth IRA last year?  If so, I’m willing to bet that the value of the account when the conversion took place is a bit higher than it is now.  There may still be time to undo the conversion and potentially save clients money.

A quick review on conversions: Taxpayers (other than married filing separately) with a Modified AGI of $100,000 or less may convert assets in an IRA (including a SEP or SIMPLE after 2 years of participation) to a Roth IRA. Taxpayers owe ordinary income taxes on the amount converted, but not the 10% premature distribution penalty.

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Is Cost Basis Reporting a Done Deal?

On Friday October 3, President Bush signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (H.R. 1424) into law.  What started out as a three page bill grew quickly into a massive 451 page behemoth.

The bill includes an array of revenue offsets located in the tax extenders portion of the bill.  One of the offsets of potential interest to FPPad readers is found in Section 403 (on page 244 in the PDF file linked above).  It’s a requirement for brokers to report a customer’s basis in securities transactions.

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Run Quick Form 1040 Illustrations with Excel

Excel 1040Yesterday I responded to a question on the Financial Planning Magazine online discussion boards about running tax illustrations and comparisons using Excel.  

A few years ago I came across Glenn Reeves’ Excel 1040 tool.  This is a handy and fairly comprehensive tool based in Excel that does a good job performing many of the common calculations that populate Form 1040.  Included are worksheets to enter W-2 income, Form 1099 distributions, Social Security, Schedule B Interest and Dividends… the list goes on and on.

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