Get real estate out of your corporation tax free
DO YOU HAVE real estate in your corporation? If so, raise your hand and then keep reading. About once a month, we get a call at the office asking a question...
Big valuation victories for the good guys
FIRST, A SIMPLE question: How much would you pay for property worth $ 100,000, if you must spend $30,000 to fix it ( commissions, special taxes or whatever)...
When are you 'substantially complete'?
SUBSTANTIAL COMPLETION is a term of art in construction. Nowhere else do these two words have special legal and financial significance. The legal significance...
Dealing with retained earnings and cash
DO YOU HAVE a large amount of retained earnings and excess cash in your corporation, but the double taxing power of the law has your cash locked in the...
Dealing with retained earnings and cash
DO YOU HAVE a large amount of retained earnings and excess cash in your corporation, but the double taxing power of the law has your cash locked in the...
How to transfer business to sons, save estate
BY IRVING L. BLACKMAN TAX ACCOUNTANT THE FACTS, PROBLEMS and solutions of this month's column are so typical of the readers who call me for help that...
We come to the rescue of distressed taxpayer
JOE, A 79-YEAR-OLD widower, is feeling economic and tax pain. Don't feel sorry for Joe, he's generally a healthy and happy guy. Still goes to work every...
How you can avoid impact of the estate tax
WHEN IT COMES to the wealth-robbing estate tax, almost every reader of this column who calls me asks this or a similar question, "Irv, can you help me...
How to make 16.28% annually without risk
BEING A TAX GUY, the most common questions I get from owners of privately held businesses are about estate planning transferring their business and wealth...
Value your business to protect your family
DO YOU KNOW how to make a grown man cry? Tell him his business has been destroyed by fire, flood or God. Yes, a tragedy. Bad stuff. But most likely, the...
The best way to attract and keep great people
MOST OF MY consulting time is spent putting together wealth transfer plans for successful business owners. Invariably, about half my clients bring up...
A lousy asset or money-making machine?
Are you Convinced that qualified retirement plans such as pension plans, profitsharing plans, IRAs and 401(k) plans are great? Good for everyone? If so,...
Your conservative portfolio is at risk
IT'S AMAZING HOW often the voice at the other end of the phone says something like, "Irv, I'm very conservative." Then they prove it. How? By telling...
Little known strategies to save your tax dollars
STRATEGY NO. 1. Are you an S corporation? Be careful. The IRS is on the warpath. Why? Many S corporation owners take small or sometimes zero salaries...
70+? Stop paying life insurance premiums
BY IRVING L. BLACKMAN TAX ACCOUNTANT ONE THING IS certain about practicing tax law. Nobody knows it all. What's the result? Specialization. A practitioner...
Storm Clouds Gathering Over U.S. Economy?
I KNOW! I KNOW! This is supposed to be a tax column, showing you how to keep it, once youve made it. In the same spirit of lets explore another area of...
2004 Wealth Transfer Plan Test Reveals a Mess
BACK IN EARLY 1995 I wrote a long column headlined, A new plan to beat the estate tax. The column said in part: If you use the right tax tools and techniques...
Payroll Taxes Go Up, Up and Away
The news for 2005 is the same and sorry old story: Social Security taxes are in the stratosphere. Your take-home pay will be lower in 2005. First the...
When the Whole Family is in on the Planning
MOST CLOSELY HELD business owners spend 10 years (often 20 years, or even longer) working on tax-related planning. You know, that not-so-easy stuff like...
Get Minority Discounts On Your Firm's Stock
ITS ALWAYS A good day when you can beat up the IRS legally. Its even better when you can pummel it with its own rules. The issue concerns the value of...
How to really create a charitable endowment
WHEN I ASK my clients, "What is your charitable intent?" most of them respond with something like, "Nothing significant." But when asking the same clients,...
All life insurance policies not created equal
WHAT DO AIRLINE tickets and life insurance premiums have in common? The cost for the identical service can vary all over the map. Two unrelated airline...
How to eliminate a tax-you-twice IRD
OVER THE YEARS, this tax column has ground out more than 1,200 articles on a ton of tax subjects. But never have I heard more from readers about a subject...
Traditional Estate Plans Enrich the IRS
THIS IS A TAX WAR story, told in a U.S. Tax Court memorandum opinion case. In 1989, Robert H. Lurie, a successful entrepreneur and very wealthy man, was...
Get Income From Your Business After You Retire
YOU ARE ABOUT to read a real-life, tax-war story. Joe, a reader of this column from Wisconsin, founded and ran his family business, Success Co., for 28...
