Why Tax Planning is So Important Now

Tax Planning is more important than ever before. The IRS just enacted the largest changes in the past 30 years.

While the federal income tax regulations are now more complicated than ever, the benefits of strategic tax planning are more valuable than ever before.

What is Tax Planning?
Tax planning is proactively arranging your income, expenses and assets in ways that postpone or avoid taxes. Doing this will result in more money to save or spend, or both.

Of course, you should not only do this solely to reduce or avoid taxes. Tax Planning can lead to doing more of what you want with your individual or business money and leaving more for later.

Why Tax Planning is Important. Top 5 Reasons.

To pay less taxes, of course!
Everyone can benefit from tax planning and everyone loves to save money. Tax Planning should reduce your tax liability legally. By using Tax Planning, you satisfy all provisions of law but in the same time you reduce your tax liability.

Allows more time for you to plan strategically for the following year.
We begin Tax Planning for many clients as early as January (most start in November) and aim to have most plans in place by the end of the year. This allows for any changes or shifts to take place well before it is too late. Tax Planning only results in more options for you.

Allows you to take advantage of tax law changes.
Because of tax law changes, taxpayers will implement significant changes to taxes and deductions. Planning before year end allows you to take full advantage of any changes as well as educate yourself to make smart money moves.

Allows you more control.
Planning ahead and being aware of deadlines, costs, etc. gives you more time to control when and where your money goes, for both individuals and businesses. This can also lead to better benefits from expenses and payments.

There are firm deadlines!
Most tax planning ideas don’t help you much after the end of the year. Planning ahead requires action by end of year so take advantage of it now!

Tax savings do not just happen. If you simply want to pay the most taxes that you can, don’t do anything. But, if you want to save taxes, you need to plan. That’s what we do for our clients. We look at their tax situation and their economic and financial activities. After we complete our analysis of the facts and applicable legal parameters we make tax savings recommendations. Often, we are able to help our clients save measurable taxes with planning that impacts their tax situation for years. At times, we have been retained to review what a client’s current CPA has done. Commonly, we find tax saving opportunities that the existing or prior CPA overlooked or which they were unaware. Tax law is tricky. Sometimes, you have to look at things from a wholly different perspective than conventional tax practitioners take. It’s then that tax planning pays off. Sometimes a small difference in the way a transaction is structured or a tax problem is analyzed can make a substantial difference in tax liability. Many times the best solution is found by looking at the surrounding and/or applicable business, estates or real estate law impacting a given transaction. That’s where also being a Business, Estates and Real Estate lawyer gives immeasurable insight and tax savings results. Steve Yahnian is also a Business, Estates and Real Estate Transactions attorney.

Yes, the tax law is daunting, even for tax professionals. But, it is also filled with opportunities. We see the tax law as a miner sees a vast and deep gold mine. Like the mine, the tax law is filled with golden tax nuggets. But, sometimes you have to look hard for them. Depending on the taxpayer’s circumstances, there may be one or more gold nuggets of tax benefits and savings opportunities that apply to and are right for them. We are tax prospectors searching for the tax nuggets that we can use to help our clients save taxes.

Are you certain you’re taking advantage of every legally available tax reduction or avoidance strategy?

Are you aware you need tax planning or a written tax opinion?

Are you preparing to enter into a business transaction, form a new entity, or acquire or sell real property? If so, are you obtaining the best tax advice? Do you have a tax planner or a tax preparer? At YAHNIAN TAX, we are both tax planners and also prepare tax returns. What’s the difference?

There are tax planners. Planners analyze a client’s situation and apply tax savings techniques to the situation. Tax preparers prepare tax returns. There are tax preparers who can put the “right” numbers in the right boxes on the right tax forms. . But is your tax advisor and/or preparer advising you of or implementing the legal tax deductions or taxable income reduction strategies that might be available? When was the last time your tax preparer told you that they have a tax idea that will save you taxes? As tax preparers, we know the tax forms. Tax preparation makes us better tax planners because we know where a tax planning strategy will show up on the tax return and having that knowledge also makes us better able to visualize how to structure a transaction because we are able to see how everything on a return works together and flows on the return, including subsidiary tax schedules that feed tax calculations to a summary reporting form in the tax return. Alternatively, tax planning makes us better tax preparers because we are made cognizant that there may be more than one right way to report a transaction on a taxpayer’s tax return, with one way giving better tax results than an equally applicable other way.

So, are you getting tax savings ideas from your current tax advisor or preparer? If you aren’t, possibly we can assist you.

Planning is the key to successfully and legally reducing your tax liability. We go beyond tax return preparation. We proactively recommend tax saving strategies to maximize your after-tax income whether by discovering legally allowable deductions or tax deferral and avoidance strategies.

Its our objective to stay abreast of tax law developments, including those of the tax code, as well as new cases and the many new tax regulations enacted each day.

It is also our objective to assist Businesses and individuals in finding legal ways to incur and pay the lowest amount of taxes allowable by law. We achieve this by continually looking for ways to minimize your taxes throughout the year, not just at the end of the year.

We recommend Tax Saving Strategies that help you do the following:

• Grow and preserve assets by keeping the government from taking more than you legally owe;
• Defer income so you can keep your money now and pay less taxes later.
• Reduce taxes on your income so you keep more of what you make.
• Plan, design and implement tax free transactions
• Reduce taxes on your estate so your family keeps more of what you've made.
• Reduce taxes on your gifts so you can give more.
• Reduce taxes on your investments so you can grow your wealth faster.
• Reduce taxes on your retirement distributions so you can retire with more money
• Maximize tax savings on interstate/multi-state activities;
• Maximize tax savings on international transactions;

Here's are a few of the Tax Saving Strategies we use...

• Splitting income among several family members or legal entities in order to get more of the income taxed in lower bracket.
• Shifting income from one year to another in order to have them fall where it will be taxed at a lower rate.
• Delaying payment of a deductible expense into the next year in order to stack expenses that may be subject to gross income percentage limits;
• Shift or accelerate expenses from one year to another in order to get better tax reduction or tax savings because applicable tax rates may vary from year to year depending on gross income variances from year to year;
• Deferral of tax liabilities through certain congressionally favored retirement plan incentives such as pension plans, contributions and other similar plans.
• Advising upon investments producing tax exempt income
• Discovering tax deductions by structuring your investments to pay for things you enjoy, such as a vacation home, hobby, or travel;
• Using Interest Charge International Domestic Sales Corporations to reduce domestic taxable income;
• Forming Captive Insurance Companies to reduce taxable income
• Forming and utilizing Interest Charge- DISCs;
• Advising upon and planning tax free like kind exchanges;
• Advising upon and planning tax deferred transactions;
• Advising upon and planning tax free entity formations, reorganizations and liquidations.

We work for you, not for the government. Many of our clients save many times the fee for our services, in reduced tax liability through careful planning and legitimate tax strategies.

So, who or what is YAHNIAN TAX? YAHNIAN TAX is an information and taxpayer advocate affiliate of YAHNIAN LAW CORPORATION and of DSA ACCOUNTING. STEVE YAHNIAN, as well as his other professional persons and staff, are dedicated to the design of optimal tax plans to minimize or even eliminate taxes for you or your business.

As a full-service tax law firm (through our affiliated CPA Firm, DSA ACCOUNTING, we can manage and prepare all of your tax filings with:

• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS),
• California Franchise Tax Board (FTB),
• California Board of Equalization (BOE),
• California Employment Development Department (EDD) and
• Other local taxing authorities.We also represent businesses, individuals, and estates at all stages of federal, state, and local controversy and litigation, and we have significant experience and insight into the limits of the law with regard to domestic and international tax issues.

Also, we provide advice and planning, including written tax opinions, where appropriate, concerning:

• domestic and international tax-saving strategies, such as the following
  • business taxes,
  • mergers and acquisitions,
  • asset protection planning,
  • estate planning,
  • real estate transactions,
  • alternative minimum tax planning,
  • spin-off and trust tax planning,
  • business entity and jurisdiction selection,
  • corporate reorganization,
  • captive insurance companies,
  • DISCs, and
  • other tax matters.
• to
  • individuals,
  • businesses,
  • estates and trusts
  • other tax professionals,
  • other non tax legal advisors,

We provide or assist in Tax Planning and Tax Opinions For Taxpayers and other Tax Professionals

• Individuals;
• Partnerships;
• LLCs;
• S Corporations;
• C Corporations;
• Trusts and Estates;
• Pension Plans;
• Income taxes
• Gift Taxes
• Estate Taxes;
• Excise Taxes;
• Payroll Taxes;
• Sale and Use Taxes;
• Non profits and tax exempt entities;
• Qualified and non qualified retirement plan issues;
• Multi-State tax issues;
• International Taxation matters;
• Help for other Tax Professionals;
• Help for Taxpayers and their Advisors;
• Pre -Transaction planning
• •Pre-Transaction structuring and restructuring;
• Post -Transaction analysis;
• Written opinions that taxpayers or tax professionals may rely on to support the structure of a transaction and to reduce taxes;
• Written opinions that taxpayers may rely on to support later avoidance of tax penalties if the tax authority or the court disapproves of the structure of the taxpayer transaction or tax reduction strategy;
• Tax Audits, Appeals and Litigation tax opinions and memorandums for use in tax disputes and litigation during audit, appeals or court proceedings;
• Second opinions