Tax-loss harvesting can be used as an opportunistic value-add within a well-diversified portfolio. By Abraham Bailin | 11-02-11 | 06:00 AM The effects of taxes on an investor’s portfolio over the long term are substantial and fairly predictable. Given today’s low-return environment, the productive value of each dollar invested must be considered. Within the context of a well-diversified portfolio, even [...]

Kelly Phillips Erb, Contributor Forbes Over the years, I’ve represented a lot of clients before the IRS. I’ve listened to hours and hours of IRS hold music. And I’ve had a lot of conversations with IRS reps and agents. But last week something happened that truly shocked me: the IRS hung up on me. On purpose. [...]

by BILL BISCHOFF While Hurricane Irene turned out to be milder than expected, it still caused deaths, injuries and an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion in property damage. And Irene was not the only big problem this year. In the spring we had devastating tornadoes in Missouri and widespread flooding in the Midwest. The [...]

Roberton Williams | Posted on August 23, 2011, 12:47 pm When Warren Buffett called for higher taxes on the wealthy in a New York Times op-ed last week, the billionaire investor argued that he and wealthy people like him face lower federal rates than the rest of us. Low rates on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends and [...]

The number of federal individual income tax returns examined by the Internal Revenue Service has continuously increased over the past five years, with 1 out of every 90 taxpayers examined in fiscal year 2010, according to a statistical report released today by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. That’s up 23 percent from fiscal year 2006, [...]

As a follow-up to our earlier article about how tax law affects behavior, we offer this story. Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest online retailer, hasn’t charged sales tax in most states since its founding in 1994. And it has taken some extreme measures to keep it that way. Among them: Staff traveling around the U.S. [...]

Does anyone think that changing tax law doesn’t change business behavior? Some politicians seem to think their actions won’t change behavior so they can do a simple calculation to get more tax revenue. For example, California thinks that it can simply force on-line retailers to begin collecting sales taxes for on-line transactions and they will [...]

April 7, 2011 WASHINGTON –– Hiding income in offshore accounts, identity theft, return preparer fraud, and filing false or misleading tax forms top the annual list of “dirty dozen” tax scams in 2011, the Internal Revenue Service announced today. “The Dirty Dozen represents the worst of the worst tax scams,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. [...]

Sorry, real estate investor, the Internal Revenue Service is coming to get you, and it won’t be pretty. The IRS is stepping up property scrutiny as a result of a 2008 Government Accountability Office finding: “At least 53% of individual taxpayers with rental real estate activity for Tax Year 2001 misreported their rental real estate [...]

BOSTON — When it comes to retirement, the average American age 65 and older generates nearly two-thirds of their total income from a combination of earned income and Social Security, with the rest coming from pensions and personal assets. But despite the fact that millions are earning income and collecting at the same time, there’s [...]