4 results for author: Joseph McCaffrey
Estate Planning Summary – Year End 2020
Turning Lemons into Lemonade
There is great uncertainty in our country today. Americans are worried about their health and their livelihood. Many businesses are struggling. Although the stock market has recovered in recent weeks, stocks are generally trading at lower values than in 2019 and the day-to-day markets are still unpredictable. Across the board, Americans feel a sense of trepidation about the future.
While it is hard to imagine there could be anything advantageous about today's uncertainties and depressed asset values, the following factors, coupled with historically low-interest rates, have made it an opportune time to transfer ...
U.S. Democratic Presidential Nominee Tax Proposals
On August 20, former United States Vice President Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic nomination for US President. However, questions about Biden’s tax proposals, such as when and how fast he would push for tax hikes, remain to be clarified heading into the fall campaign.
Complicating matters, the US has recently spent trillions of dollars in response to the consequences resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, and the US is likely to spend trillions more. Someone has to bear the cost of all this spending and increased taxes appear to be the answer.
Biden’s proposed tax plan has two major components: higher taxes on both high-i...
We Urge The IRS to Provide Better Guidance on Cryptocurrency Rules
Following an explosive 2017, many of the cryptocurrencies we are commonly familiar with reached their all-time peak values in January of 2018 before the market took a spectacular turn for worse and began a correction that lasted for the entire year. During the year, many cryptocurrencies you are familiar with witnessed staggering losses. Bitcoin alone lost more than $250 billion, or 80% of its value, Ethereum lost more than 90% of its value, and other cryptocurrencies suffered similar losses.
It was practically impossible to read the news without seeing reports on how poorly the market was doing, or how much money investors were losing by the ...
The IRS and Cryptocurrency Transactions
Both digital currencies and cryptocurrencies have been around for several years (Bitcoin since 2009), but only in the past couple of years has the IRS begun to really focus its enforcement on cryptocurrency transactions. So far the IRS approach has been focused on Enforcement and Punishment, rather than amnesty and voluntary prior year disclosure, a “Stick” approach (punishment) without the “Carrot” (reward). The current IRS approach presents both taxpayer risk and opportunity.
In 2014 the IRS issued Notice 2014-21 that rules virtual currencies (Cryptocurrency Transactions) are to be taxed as property. This establishes a reporting ...