Happy New Year! We look forward to helping you with your tax preparation and consulting needs this year. If we filed your 2023 taxes, please expect a tax organizer to be sent your way soon (via email) to help you gather the information and documents needed to prepare your 2024 individual tax returns. If we didn’t prepare you taxes last year and you are interested in 2024 tax preparation services, please contact us, schedule an appointment, or give us a call/text - 520-719-2786.
As tax rules and regulations continue to rapidly change, and grow increasingly more complex, we strive to educate and empower you regarding your own tax situation.
With this goal in mind, I want to briefly share with you a few tax changes you should be aware of this year, in case any of these changes affect you:
You may contribute to you retirement accounts until April 15, 2025 and claim the contribution on your 2024 tax return. Please reach out to find out how this could benefit your individual tax situation.
Reduce your AZ Tax Liability with Dollar-for-Dollar AZ Charitable Tax Credits
You may have heard on the news about the new 1099-K rules for “payment apps” such as Venmo, PayPal, and CashApp. These new 1099-K rules will result in more people receiving 1099's that they didn’t receive before. If you receive a 1099-K, please take the time to identify where the income shown on the 1099-K comes from. If the income is related to the sale of personal items (selling your old baseball cards on eBay, selling clothing on Poshmark.com, etc.), please make a list of the items you sold, and how much you originally paid for each item. It is VERY possible that these sales will be NON-TAXABLE. Your records on that kind of thing don’t have to be “perfect” but please bring us the best information you have, so that we can make sure you don’t get wrongly overtaxed.
If you are under age 60 and took money out of a retirement plan last year (IRA, 401K, etc.), there are some new exceptions that we have available to avoid costly early withdrawal penalties. Please tell your us how any withdrawn funds were used, so that we can try to avoid penalties for you.
If you had any student loan debt canceled last year, the good news is that you won't have to pay tax on the canceled debt. The "normal" rule that requires payment of income tax on canceled debt has been eliminated until 2026--for student loans only (does not apply to credit card debt, for example).
If you purchased an electric vehicle last year, the dealership may have "transferred" a tax credit worth up to $7,500 to you at the time of purchase. In this case, the dealership should give you IRS Form 15400, showing any credit received at the time of purchase. Please make sure we get a copy of that form during this year's tax preparation.
If you buy or sell cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, etc.), or have done so in the past, it is important to realize that the IRS has been taking extensive measures to “tighten up” their tax collection on cryptocurrency. Starting for next tax season, for example, cryptocurrency exchanges (Coinbase, etc.) will be sending 1099’s showing gains (or losses) from cryptocurrency. It would be a good idea to review your records now and make sure you have an accurate understanding of your gains and losses from cryptocurrency, so that you are not exposed to problems from increased IRS focus on cryptocurrency tax collections.
With a new President taking office, we are expecting many more tax changes to happen this year. The existing set of tax rules, known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” is set to expire at the end of 2025, so Congress and the President will be negotiating this year about how to extend and/or expand the existing rules. Expect more changes, while also being careful not to believe everything you hear, because tax misinformation is a real thing.
Here are a few of the possible tax changes that are being debated right now: increased Child Tax Credit, new tax credit for caregivers, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime pay, and no tax on Social Security pensions. Please note that, as of today (January 17, 2024) these changes are not finalized, but are merely in the discussion / debate stage. We will strive to keep you updated as more tax changes happen.
520-719-2786 | Tucson, AZ