Individual Strategies

Pedants will argue that you shouldn't refer to Code Section 183 - Activities not Engaged in For Profit as the "hobby loss rule", because the word hobby appears nowhere in the statute. The pedants scored a point in 2021, but I will still be sticking with the term. It looked like a slow year for hobby loss developments, but we finished with two major cases including a big taxpayer win. Let’s take a look.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times – and charity cannot only help those in need; it can provide some hefty tax deductions to the donor, as well.

It seems like the left and the right have entered into a competition as to which side can make the silliest tax observation. The New York Times came out strong for the left as its team of reporters was handed fragments of Trump’s 1995 tax filings. They proceeded to “explain” flow-through entities and net operating losses, fairly mundane tax concepts, as if they were tools of Satan. It did not take long for the right to strike back at least as imprudently.

At least once a week in the cryptocurrency community, there is a new post or article encouraging crypto investors to relocate to Puerto Rico to avoid tax. Relocating to the Caribbean is certainly an attractive proposition, but is it too good to be true? In the words of every good tax professional everywhere, “It depends.” Becoming a resident of Puerto Rico does have some potential tax benefits that come with it, but it is no slam dunk decision. Let’s take a trip together to the Island of Enchantment, grab a cocktail on the beach, and lower our tax bill!

Cecile Barker has bad news from the Eleventh Circuit. They have upheld the Tax Court’s disallowance of his multi-million dollar net operating loss deduction (NOL) largely generated by SoBe Entertainment LLC. SoBe Entertainment is a record label that has represented numerous artists included Brooke Hogan, daughter of Hulk Hogan. The indirect Hulk Hogan connection makes Mr. Barker a tangential figure in a fascinating story you can read about in Conspiracy – Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday. For purposes of this article, we will stick to the tax story which began with a Tax Court opinion in 2018, which I covered previously.

COVID-19 has affected every aspect of our lives, and tax filing status is no exception. Couples who have filed jointly for their entire marriage may find that for 2021 it is more beneficial to file separately. This is in large part thanks to the many stimulus bills the Congress passed in 2020 and 2021. The addition of Economic Impact Payments (EIP) and the associated Recovery Rebate Credits (RRC) have complicated what was once a simple tax calculation to now include these additional factors. In some scenarios, a couple would pay more tax filing separately than if they filed jointly, but because of pandemic-related credits, end up with more money in their pockets. Filing separately is not without its own potential headaches, though. Keep reading to find out when to switch your filing status.

Think back to January 2021. A new President was sworn in; Twitter was obsessed with “Bean Dad,” and the term “Meme Stock” entered popular culture. A previously obscure subreddit called “Wall Street Bets” began making front page headlines. Average Americans took their “Stimmies” and invested them into unpopular companies, some on the verge of failure, and started making double digit percentage gains per day by pitting their collective holdings to short squeeze institutional investors. Companies that no analyst listed as a good buy, such as a retail video game store (retail is still a thing?), a movie theater chain (in the middle of a pandemic) and multiple cell phone companies (that don’t produce Apple or Android phones) all began to skyrocket overnight. As of this writing, GameStop Corp. ($GME) was up nearly 2000 percent in the last year. It’s likely while riding the adrenaline rollercoaster, most investors were not thinking about taxes. There are no taxes on the moon, but it’s not too late to plan for tax consequences here on Earth.

When recognizing capital gains during a tax year, it can often make financial sense to sell assets that have lost value to offset profits in other investments or regular income. In this situation, you swap stocks, bonds, or mutual funds by buying a similar asset, selling the old asset and taking a loss. This strategy is called tax-loss harvesting, and it can be applied under certain circumstances which will lower your taxes. Yet while the tax deduction might seem appealing, you might have a hard time locking in that loss forever, and you may be inclined to repurchase the same investment in case the value rebounds. This strategy may appear brilliant on paper; however, the IRS doesn’t allow such manipulation just to reduce taxes. The Wash Loss Rule prevents traders from realizing a tax loss on a position that the taxpayer reacquires within 30 days after (or before) selling a security. But a little known loophole may allow you to complete a wash sale and claim your deduction without recognizing the loss forever as long as it is crypto. Cryptocurrency continues to be an area where the rules don’t always seem to make sense. Most experienced investors are already familiar with the “Wash Loss Rule,” while many newer investors have recently learned about it the hard way. To learn this valuable strategy for offsetting your capital gains while remaining in the investment gain for expected future growth, continue reading to learn more.