Advisers must consider a number of issues when helping a client navigate through a divorce. Emotions are at their peak, but careful thought and planning must take place before the divorce agreement is finalized, to prevent future financial and legal headaches. This item discusses the five top issues that financial advisers and CPAs should consider throughout a client’s divorce negotiations.
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Personal Financial Planning
Retiree Tax Planning With Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts
The IRS recently issued regulations authorizing a new type of annuity contract for certain tax-favored retirement plans and IRAs: Qualified longevity annuity contracts.
Global Family Business Succession Survey: Eight Principles of Succession
This item highlights eight principles of succession. It is important that tax advisers not only provide guidance on the tax implications of their clients’ succession plans, but that they also help their clients understand these important business succession principles.
Tax Strategies for the Long Horizon
New taxes and higher rates have dramatically increased the complexity of planning for many taxpayers; however, long-standing techniques for managing income and deductions and taking best advantage of tax-favored vehicles for retirement saving still hold sway.
Help for Self-Employed Clients Who Owe Taxes They Cannot Pay
In tax practice, CPAs occasionally encounter self-employed clients who have difficulty keeping up with their quarterly estimated tax payments. The problem of making adequate estimated tax payments is particularly difficult for the self-employed because they generally do not have taxes withheld and remitted to the government, as do most employees with wages reported on Form W-2.
Planning With Home-Equity Loans and Mortgage Refinancing
Homeowners should not overlook the opportunity to generate cash flow by using the equity in their residence. Not only are home-equity loans a relatively cheap source of financing (considering the after-tax effective borrowing rate), but also the repayment terms are often more generous than those on unsecured loans.
Life Insurance Funding Analysis Exhibit
This exhibit accompanies the Personal Financial Planning column in the June 2014 issue of The Tax Adviser.
The Universal Life Crisis: A Potential Fix for an Underperforming Policy
The prolonged low-interest-rate environment can have a dramatic effect on universal life insurance policies.
Retroactive Tax Planning After Windsor
Married same-sex couples must now file their federal income tax returns as either married filing jointly or separately, but they have a choice whether to amend their federal income tax returns for open years during which they were legally married.
A New Road Map for CPAs’ Professional Conduct When Providing PFP Services
The PFP Executive Committee issued a statement to provide guidance to members and help them uphold the highest levels of integrity, professionalism, objectivity, and competence.
Protection From Creditors for Retirement Plan Assets
This article will help tax practitioners come to grips with the unique intersection of the tax, bankruptcy, and ERISA laws in the area of retirement planning.
Immediate Year-End Planning Opportunity for Existing CRTs
The immediate planning opportunity for CRTs is to harvest short-term and long-term capital losses. Here is how it works and what changed from earlier years.
New Brackets, Net Investment Income Tax Expand Scope of Tax Planning
Virtually every financial decision for higher-income taxpayers now needs to be analyzed through the lens of the regular income tax, the alternative minimum tax, the net investment income tax, and new additional brackets.
PFP Resources
Author Robert Keebler’s firm is finalizing two software products for the AICPA. “Tax Rate Evaluator: A Graphical Calculator for Tax Planning After ATRA” was used to develop some of the exhibits in this column.
Sea-Change: Planning for Same-Sex Married Couples and the DOMA Decision
This column provides practitioners with an overview of the impact of the recent decision striking down a key provision in the Defense of Marriage Act ; a preliminary checklist of areas to be addressed with same-sex clients; and a discussion of the issues involved.
Cross-Border Pension Rollover Creates U.S. Taxable Income
As the global workforce becomes increasingly mobile, more and more workers must wade through the intricacies of cross-border taxation.
The Proposed Statement on Standards in Personal Financial Planning: What Does It Mean for You?
To adapt to this rapidly evolving area of practice, the AICPA released this spring an exposure draft of the Proposed Statement on Standards in Personal Financial Planning Practice.
Background and Methods of Integrative Tax Practice
CPAs must assess the methods, skills, and tools needed for family practice to better integrate clients’ most important personal finance concerns.
Pension Rescue and the Fair Market Value of a Permanent Life Insurance Policy
“Pension rescue” is a sales concept used to help sell life insurance. The problem with pension rescue is that it is based on a valuation of the life insurance policy that may not hold up to IRS scrutiny.
Top 10 Steps of Succession Planning for a Privately Held Business
Succession planning for the privately held business results in an orderly transfer of the ownership and management of the business to the next generation in a tax-efficient manner.
TAX PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
2025 tax software survey
AICPA members in tax practice assess how their return preparation software performed during tax season and offer insights into their procedures.
