Tax Blog

With the looming increase in tax rates on investment income and capital gains in particular, a large number of stock market investors have been selling long-term positions to lock in the 2012 rate, which currently tops out at 15%.  Come January 1,2013, gain on the same sale could be taxed at a rate as high as 23.8%, consisting of a long-term capital gains tax rate of 20% plus a Medicare surtax of 3.8% imposed on joint filers with AGI greater than $250,000 and single filers with AGI greater than $200,000.  (See Internal Revenue Code § 1411).

A question attracting attention as the year draws to a ...

Editors’ note.  This is the first of a new periodic series on the Tax Blawg.  Mainstream press articles often implicate complex, technical tax issues.  Admirably, the press attempts to simplify the tax issues to make them more interesting and digestible for the general public, but sometimes simplification can leave readers with an incomplete or misleading understanding of the big tax picture.  For that portion of the audience who wants a little more background than the mainstream press can realistically provide, this series will unwind the tax issues discussed in prominent news ...