It's tax-planning time

Now is the ideal time to schedule a tax-planning session. Your tax return outcome is still fresh, and it's early enough in the year to make corrective action to take advantage of the numerous new tax law changes taking place in 2018. Here's a brief overview of some of the new tax issues that you need to plan for now.

1. Income
Tax rates and income tax deductions have changed drastically for individuals and small businesses, including a new doubling of the standard deduction and the elimination of most personal exemptions and miscellaneous itemized deductions. Review your income tax withholding schedule and see where you fall in the new income tax bracket structure.

2. Bunching
Because of the changes to the deductions structure, using itemized deductions may entail bunching two or even 3 years of expenses into one year. Things like donations and medical expenses across several years are now better bunched into a single year to maximize tax savings. If you're considering the bunching approach to itemize, you'll want to make that decision as early in the year as possible.

3. SALT (State and local taxes)
There's now a $10,000 combined total cap on deductions of state and local income, sales and property taxes, which is going to impact a lot of people, especially in high-tax states. Get an analysis done to see how much larger your tax bill is going to be because of the SALT cap.

4. Mortgage interest changes
You can now no longer deduct the interest cost on mortgage indebtedness greater than $750,000. You can also no longer deduct interest on mortgage indebtedness that wasn't spent directly on buying, building or substantially improving your home. If you've used a home equity loan interest deduction, you'll need to review how this will impact your itemized deductions.

These are just a few examples of things you'll need to review in the wake of the largest tax law changes. Use the summer to make sure you have a plan in place and contact Luers & Dyer, CPAs, LLP for more information and consulting: (760) 765-0343 or rebeccaorjan@luersdyercpa.com



Luers & Dyer, CPAs, LLP is a full service accounting firm with offices in Julian and San Diego. For more information about our company call (760) 765-0343.