News & Insights

As the tax reporting season enters full swing, filers need to keep abreast of IRS rule changes and new obligations.

New IRS rules in relation to the reporting of cryptocurrency assets make it imperative for taxpayers to be clear and transparent in their disclosure of cryptocurrencies, with those who fail in this regard facing potential criminal investigation, fines as high as $250,000 and as many as five years in prison.

Here we take a look at the key factors in cryptocurrency reporting.

The stretch Individual Retirement Account (IRA) has long been used as an efficient estate planning strategy. However, with the passing into law of the new Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, beneficiaries will no longer be able to stretch out required minimum distributions over the course of their lifetime.

Instead, beneficiaries who are not spouses must now exhaust their inherited IRAs within a decade – other exempt parties include under 18s and beneficiaries with certain disabilities. Quite simply, what was once a winning estate planning tool has now become a conundrum.

So, how do you solve this puzzle in order to serve the best interests of beneficiaries while simultaneously reducing exposure to any unnecessary tax burden?

Tax filing seasons got underway on 27 January, the date on which the Internal Revenue Service began to accept the first of 150 million anticipated returns.

The due date for tax payments is 15 April*, with interest starting to accrue on any tax owed after this date.

Over recent years many tax filers have become accustomed to filing returns digitally – for many this represents the most efficient way of managing the process – and 2020 is likely to be no different, with a record number of digital tax filers expected. However, this comes despite the problems of the Free File program — a partnership between the IRS and private-sector tax-return software companies.

The antitrust lawsuit against the merger of investment brokers Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade has been dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

However, the decision is unlikely to be the end of the matter as the dismissal was made on procedural grounds with the court ruling that the plaintiff, BlackCrown Inc., is a corporate entity and therefore cannot represent itself. The judge cited the 1993 case of Rowland v. California Men’s Colony and the 1997 decision reached in Pridgen v. Anresen as forming the basis for the court’s decision.

On 20 December 2019, President Trump signed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act into law*. The bill had already passed the House in a resounding 417-3 vote, and the reasons why it had near-unanimous bi-partisan support are clear.

SECURE promises to herald new ways of thinking about, and preparing for, retirement as the US moves into the 2020s. The Act seeks to enhance the coverage of qualified plan rules, not least by allowing smaller employers to collaborate so they can offer their staff 401(k) plans and, in a move that answers a frequent criticism, by giving long-standing part-time workers access to 401(k) plans.

All being well, when an individual reaches retirement they will have enough cashflow to continue their pre-retirement lifestyle; however, a new study indicates that many in the US will be unable to meet even their basic spending needs once they stop working.

The new report, from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), finds that despite accruing around three decades worth of savings into their 401(k) accounts, most retirement savers between the ages of 56 and 61 have a median account balance of $21,000.*

It would be tempting to think that younger people were better prepared, yet the same study reveals that the first generation of millennials are just as poorly, if not more poorly, prepared for retirement, with a median 401(k) saving of approximately $1,000.*

It is a curious thing that for an industry in which success largely lives or dies on the strength of diversity, it has taken a long time for the finance sector to cotton on to the value inherent in investing in female-founded and female-run companies.