I wanted to reach out about tax planning for 2019 and 2020. There haven’t been any significant changes to the tax code this year worth noting, just small changes to the inflation indexed amounts such as the tax brackets and standard deductions.
As for closing out 2019, you may want to review the following strategies to potentially reduce your current year tax liability:
Decide if you want to make any charitable contributions in the next few years and consider consolidating them in the current year to take advantage of itemizing your deductions.
Review any investments to determine if you have capital losses that you want to take in 2019 before year end.
Make your January mortgage payment in December to deduct additional interest expense in 2019.
If you have any upcoming medical procedures that may require out of pocket expenses, consider completing them this year.
If this is a relatively low-income year for you, consider converting your IRA into a ROTH-IRA to take advantage of a lower tax bracket.
If you are over 70 ½ and thereby taking “Required Minimum Distributions” from your IRA or 401k, be sure to have any charitable contributions taken directly from the retirement account to lower taxable income.
For 2020, the only pressing matter at this point is the change to California law. California is now requiring qualifying health insurance coverage throughout the year (beginning January 1, 2020), otherwise the state will impose a penalty of $695 per person on your 2020 taxes.
Please email or call with any specific questions.