Believe it or not, 2026 is almost upon us (less than 3 weeks !). In case you care, here is a quick list of some tax items for 2026: Standard deduction for married file joint: 32,200 Standard deduction for single: 16,100 Standard deduction for heads of household: 24,150 Annual gift "tax" exclusion: 19,000 (which is unchanged from 2025) 401K payroll deferral maximum: 24,500 (if under age 50) 401K payroll deferral maximum: 32,500 (if 50 and older (35,750 age 60-63)) IRA deduc

I'd like to do a deeper dive on another popular new tax provision. Here's the background: About 6 years ago, there were several tax law changes. One of them was to limit the Schedule A (itemized deductions) state and local tax deduction to $10,000. This helped cause many taxpayers who previously used Schedule A, to since claim the standard deduction. This $10,000 cap limited the total amount of one's state and local income taxes and real estate property tax deduction. As

As a refresher, one of the new tax rules to come in to play for 2025, is a deduction of up to $25,000 on tip income. I'm not going to get in to ALL the details of this new rule at this time, but I wanted to point out that a preliminary list of the occupations that qualify for this deduction has been issued fairly recently. The occupations listed are supposed to capture all that customarily receive tips. You can not start categorizing any pay as tips when it never has been

This post is geared towards my current clients, and of course I will be communicating more formally about it in my upcoming service...