Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about whether there really are “maximum” retirement benefit rates, whether applying for spousal benefits would have been advantageous and how the earnings test works. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See more Ask Larry answers
Taxes
Social Security is supposed to be inflation-proof. It’s anything but. Today’s the day tens of millions of retirees learn about their annual Social Security “bonus.” I’m referring to the system’s COLA (Cost-of-Living Adjustment), which, as announced on Thursday, will raise recipients’ benefits by 8.7% starting with checks received in January. The COLA is supposed to
Congress has been making it harder and harder to deduct charitable contributions. Know the latest rules so the IRS won’t be able to deny tax breaks for your charitable donations. The increase in the standard deduction in the 2017 tax law means you have to give more to receive a tax break. You deduct charitable
In February 2022 the IRS issued proposed regulations that surprised a lot of tax advisors and indicated a number of heirs incurred penalties for not taking actions they didn’t know about. In early October the IRS said it would waive those penalties for 2021 and 2022. The proposed regulations were issued under the Setting Every
In Schweizer v. Comm’r TC Memo 2022-102, the Tax Court held that the denial of a $600,000 charitable deduction for the donation of a work of art was reasonable because the tax return included an incomplete Form 8283 as well as the taxpayer’s reliance, and lack of care and ordinary prudence, on a professionally prepared