Do You Owe The AMT?

American educational reformer Horace Mann called education “the great equalizer.”1 In football, it’s been said that turnovers are the great equalizer. And anyone who’s ever watched CBS’s “The Amazing Race,” knows airport delays are the great equalizer in a race around the world. In taxes, there’s also an equalizer of sorts; it’s called the alternative minimum … Read more

What Is a 1035 Exchange?

According to the most recent information available, Americans have individual life insurance with a total face value of $12.4 trillion.1 Due to a variety of factors, these individuals may find themselves in circumstances where the specific life insurance policy or annuity contract they own does not suit their needs.2 They may want to exchange products without … Read more

What If You Get Audited?

“Audit” is a word that can strike fear into the hearts of taxpayers. However, the chances of an Internal Revenue Service audit aren’t that high. Between 2010 and 2018, the IRS only audited 0.6% of all individual tax returns.¹ And being audited does not necessarily imply that the IRS suspects wrongdoing. The IRS says an … Read more

What Do Your Taxes Pay For?

Taxes are one of the biggest budget items for most taxpayers, yet many have no idea what they’re getting for their money. In 2017, as in recent years, Americans spent more on taxes than on groceries, clothing, and shelter combined. In fact, we worked until late April just to earn enough money to pay our taxes. … Read more

How Income Taxes Work

The Internal Revenue Service estimates that taxpayers and businesses spend about 8 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements. To put this into perspective, if all this work were done by a single company, it would need about four million full-time employees and be one of the largest industries in the U.S.¹ As complex … Read more

Understanding Marginal Income Tax Brackets

By any measure, the tax code is huge. It is over 2,000 pages long, and even longer with footnotes.1 And almost weekly, the Internal Revenue Service publishes a 20- to 50-page bulletin about various aspects of the tax code.2 Fortunately, it’s not necessary to wade through these massive libraries to get a basic understanding of … Read more