Taxes

Gifting is a great financial planning tool, especially at the end of the year. Alhambra's Bob Williams goes through the basics.

In December 2022, Congress and the president did what they do best—spend more money--$1.7 trillion. The spending includes $858 billion for the military, $772 billion for domestic priorities, another $45 billion for Ukraine, and oh, by the way, enough money to keep the government running until September 2023, which...

Well, the IRS hasn’t hired those 87-thousand new agents approved by Congress last year. But even without them, the cost of underpaying your taxes just got more expensive. The interest rate charged for not paying your taxes on time has gone up.   As of January 1, 2023, the underpayment interest...

Celebrities are often placed on a pedestal because of their success and their extraordinary talent—people like Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Prince, Michael Jackson, Howard Hughes, Pablo Picasso, Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix. They were gifted and they made boat-loads of money doing what they did best. But making money has no...

What’s that I hear? It’s very faint, but it sounds familiar. I cup my hand around my ear to hear better and, yes, I’ve heard it before. In the distance, there are shouts of “Abolish the IRS. We want a Fair Tax.” The idea of a Fair Tax was first...

Tax Time—it’s one of those phrases that strikes fear in the hearts of even the strongest among us. It can send one spouse scurrying for cover while the other gathers and organizes tax documents. And vile words not heard during the rest of the year have been known to...

Planning for retirement. We spend most of our working career preparing for it, saving for it, covering every contingency. When you finally wave goodbye to the company, you’re ready for all that planning to take over. But does your planning take into account the taxes you’ll have to pay...

How many times have we heard, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar”? Ok, but if you carry that line of thinking a little farther, don’t give Caesar, or the IRS, MORE than they’re supposed to get. If something is in the IRS code, and it applies to you, then use it....

Hunting season is open again and you’re the target. According to the Internal Revenue Service, there is a new IRS impersonation email scam trying to con you out of your personal information with the end game of stealing your identity. There are variations of what appears in the email subject...

Have you ever had that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize there was a tax deduction you could have taken and didn’t? There’s just something deflating about knowing Uncle Sam got more of your money than he had to. The folks at TurboTax have...