1031 Exchanges and Vacation Homes – What you need to know.

With it being vacation season when many people gather with families and friends at their vacation property, owners often wonder what they can do to address the tax ramifications of their vacation property should they decide to sell. Vacation property, especially those on Cape Cod and other high demand vacation spots, appreciate quickly and with that owners become concerned about the capital gain tax consequences upon the sale of the property. In other instances, real estate investors want to consider using proceeds from the sale of investment real estate to acquire a vacation or second home, utilizing the profits from the sale to defer the taxes. Over the last forty years, there has been some changes as to whether vacation property could be subject to a 1031 exchange – this article will detail the history and the state of the law in 2023 on vacation property 1031 exchanges so that

Read More »

Entity Options for Your Massachusetts Small Business

Posted by Robert L. Arone You know your business better than anyone else: whether that be a professional, trade, occupation, dog-walking, catering, or custom-made crocheted goods. But when it comes to giving your business the best legal and tax footing, you may feel a little lost in what choices there are and the benefits and costs of each choice. In this article, I will give a simplified overview of a few business structures available to Massachusetts entrepreneurs and small business owners. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks regarding registration procedure, tax structure, and personal liability. Some choices are better for taxation and some for liabilities and some structures cost more to maintain. Sole Proprietorship A sole proprietorship is, in many ways, the default legal structure for a Massachusetts business. A sole proprietorship has, as the name would suggest, a single (“sole”) owner (“proprietor”). The procedure for setting up a

Read More »

Preparing for the Reduction in the Estate Tax Exemption

Posted by Robert L. Arone In late May of this year, the U.S. Treasury released a publication detailing a number of the proposed tax code changes that the Biden administration would like to usher through Congress in an ambitious effort to modernize the US tax system to meet its citizens’ needs. While reasonable minds may differ strongly on the best way to stimulate the US economy and create wealth and security for the American people, one thing is certain: the need for individuals to engage in careful estate and tax planning to avoid paying more tax than necessary is not going away. The IRS publication,[1] sometimes referred to as the Green Book, outlines a number of key proposals that—if ultimately passed—have the potential to significantly shake up the estate planning world as we know it today by sidelining a number of tried and true estate planning strategies while potentially increasing the

Read More »

Accounting Methods for Cryptocurrency Trades & Sales

By Eric P. Rothenberg, Esq. – (Published Article)   The world of cryptocurrency transactions was changed dramatically at the end of 2017 when the Internal Revenue Code [“IRC”] was modified to remove all types of assets eligible for Tax Free Exchanges under IRC Section 1031 [also known as “1031 Transactions] EXCEPT for real estate. Prior to 2018, you could exchange farm animals, rail cars and office equipment, etc. After 2017, only real estate will qualify. In my previous articles on cryptocurrency tax aspects, I discussed that the IRS has treated, since 2014, all cryptocurrency as “property” and not as either currency or security. The SEC, however, does treat it as a security, and FinCEN, the short name of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a department within the US Treasury, treats it as currency. With three differing views of the same intangible object, confusion abounds. PRIOR LAW Prior to 2018, you

Read More »

Cryptocurrency [Bitcoin] and the IRS

By Eric P. Rothenberg, Esq. – [Download PDF Article] The creation and use of cryptocurrency is very recent. Back in 2010, it just began trading. In 2011, it hit its first “bubble” at $31 per coin when previously they traded for just pennies. Most people by now have already heard it hit nearly $18,000 in December 2017. That’s quite a leap in just 7 years. If you wish to learn all about cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology behind it, which may become an important tool for many businesses in the future, go to the Wikipedia’s History of Bitcoin. This article is not about what bitcoins are, but is about what you need to know about their income tax and reporting aspects. And this article is a very over-simplified view to point out the issues and give you some guidance as a start. For many years, no one even knew what

Read More »
Top