By seeking customized tax planning, you can make sure that when tax time rolls around you have a plan to avoid tax debt. Since tax debt can lead to collections calls and visits from an IRS revenue officer, and will eventually mean a lien or levy on your personal property, customized tax planning can help you prepare for your taxes before they become a problem.
Not only can customized tax planning keep you out of tax debt, but tax planning can help you lower your tax bill for a business or estate. This means you can plan now to protect your family from a tax burden down the road.
Our team of tax professionals know how the IRS work, and we know how to help you. Watch Top Tax Defenders Director of Operations, Priya Mishra, explain our process and how we can help you create a tax plan.
Tax planning is a proactive approach to your tax profile instead of getting sticker shock at tax prep time.
With customized tax planning, tax professionals analyze your personal and business tax situation with an eye toward minimizing how much you pay in taxes throughout the year and on Tax Day. It’s an ongoing process rather than one-and-done because your life and tax law changes all the time.
Tax planning looks at multiple factors to determine your best way forward, including:
With these elements in mind, your customized tax plan can take shape. Your plan will have a strategy that allows you to legally reduce your taxable income by changing the character of your income, timing large purchases (and sales), and creating circumstances that eliminate or defer taxation.
Your plan will include strategies for you to take advantage of relevant and allowable tax deductions, tax credits, and tax loopholes, based on your personal situation. For example:
You can take many steps to plan for your taxes, but some situations are more complicated and better suited to support from a tax professional. If you need help with your taxes, Top Tax Defenders can help you with all aspects of tax planning. We handle personal, business, and estate planning. Top Tax Defenders' team of tax professionals can provide your with expert guidance based on your specific situation and customized tax planning services to help you reduce the taxes you pay and increase the cash you (and your family) can keep.
The first step is to avoid debt in the first place. Taxes affect so many areas of American life; you may forget that there are different ways to save money. It would be best to keep in mind the tax implications of significant financial decisions like home-buying or selling. The tax laws surrounding real property sales are tough to hear if you are a new home buyer or seller.
It can be hard to save a little money after taxes, so wouldn’t it be better to save it before taxes? Many retirement plans allow you to set aside money before taxes. Then when you take distributions after retirement, you are likely sitting at a lower tax bracket and will pay less tax on those funds.
Retirement planning helps you maximize savings and minimize your eventual taxes by deferring them until later.
As we mentioned above, if you can defer taxes on what you earn until you are in a lower tax bracket, the savings are significant. You can save quite a bit of money over your working life before being taxed on it.
Tax planning also helps you take advantage of deductions. It enables you to determine whether to take the standard deduction or if it would be worthwhile to itemize.
Customized tax planning can help you optimize the timing of purchases that substantially impact your tax picture. You can time those purchases to your best advantage.
Implementing tax planning strategies can help you get these benefits and more. Here are some examples of common tax planning strategies that may be utilized in your personalized plan:
Save money in pretax withholding and pay less on your withdrawals later, after you retire. Contributing to tax-advantaged retirement accounts, like a Traditional IRA or 401(k), can reduce taxable income and defer taxes on growth until withdrawal.
It matters when you sell investments. Tax gain-loss harvesting uses your portfolio’s losses to offset your overall capital gains. A single investor whose income is $80,000 and has $10,00 in long-term capital gains could offset long-term capital gains for a tax liability of only $1,500.
How? The investor sells underperforming investments carrying $10,000 capital losses. The losses match the gains, resulting in a tax liability of zero.
Suppose you have enough income to hit the annual minimum tax threshold. In that case, you can develop an effective plan to generate the correct documentation to determine whether that will happen. Then you can restructure your tax profile to minimize your taxes or keep you from reaching the AMT.
If you work in one state and live in another or earn money across several states, multi-state tax planning keeps everything straight, so you don't default on any state taxes and uses state taxes to minimize your federal tax profile.
Multi-state planning is crucial if you do business across state lines.
Nobody wants to think about dying, but the financial health of the family is a crucial issue. If you die, what taxes will the survivors pay, and who inherits your property and money? How can you maximize the funds available for your loved ones without estate taxes bleeding them dry? Utilizing trusts, gifts, and other estate planning instruments can minimize the tax impact on your heirs and ensure a smooth transfer of assets. Tax professionals can also help make sure proceeds from life insurance policies are distributed as you wish.
Owning a business is the American Dream. But who runs it when you step down or die? Do you want the family to retain ownership, or do you want a key employee to receive it? You need to develop a plan that lines up with your personal priorities.
Business tax planning helps protect your family by setting up creditor payment protection in the event that your business is in debt. In the event that you are selling off a business, tax planning can make sure that you pay any tax bill associated with the sale without getting into tax debt with the IRS or having your personal assets at stake.
The IRS scrutinizes non-profits. Without proper planning to ensure your non-profit complies with the rules to maintain tax-exempt status, you could owe significant money.
In addition to the strategies listed above, you can also take advantage of other traditional tax saving strategies like these:
If you need customized tax planning for your personal taxes, business, or for estate planning purposes, you need the help of a professional tax firm. The team at Top Tax Defenders knows how the IRS works and how your business or estate will be taxed. We can help you avoid a tax burden by planning today, rather than waiting until it's too late. Top Tax Defenders boasts over 27 years of experience helping clients with tax issues.
Personal and business deductions you shouldn't ignore.
"I would like to commend and recommend Top Tax Defenders to anyone with tax problems. They were very professional, communicative and resolved our long-standing tax problems quickly. I couldn't be more pleased!! We just paid a fraction of what was owed. Thank you."
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