Someday, accountants will be cool. I don’t just mean in the “Oh, you’re majoring in accounting, that’s cool” sense. I mean Steve-McQueen-cruising-through-Rome-on-a-Vespa cool. Someday, little kids who dream of growing up to be accountants will collect bubblegum cards with Big Four partners’ pictures on one side and detailed career stats on the back. (Tax dollars saved, by year! Endorses checks: right-handed!) When they get to high school, they’ll be as popular as the quarterback of the football team and the Homecoming Queen. (56.8% of CPAs are women.) Someday, cool college kids will skip fraternities to party with the Accounting Club.
tax reduction
2025 Tax Forecast
2025 promises to be a big year for taxes. Right now, the individual provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 set our current standard deductions and tax brackets. Those rules expire, like Cinderella’s carriage at midnight on December 31. At that point, if Washington hasn’t extended them, taxes go up for as much as 80% of Americans. That’s an unacceptable result for Democrats and Republicans alike. And it promises a bruising effort ahead as Congress weighs continuing the cuts against a $36 trillion national debt.
End of an Era?
Last month, Peacock aired the series finale of their monster hit Yellowstone. (One big spoiler to come!) For five and a half seasons, the show chronicled the ups and downs of the Dutton family, heirs to the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, as they fought to defend their land. On one side, greedy developers conspired to turn it into the next Park City. On the other, the neighboring Broken Rock tribe wanted to reclaim their ancestral home. Real Montana ranchers say the show is remarkably true-to-life, especially the gunfights, beatings, explosions, and occasional “long black train” to the back of the head.
Taxing “Climate Criminals”
Last week, we discussed how the 2017 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025—and how the election results make it likelier that Washington will extend them. Here’s the problem: it won’t be cheap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates extending the current rules will blow a $4 billion hole in the budget over the next 10 years, along with an unknown amount of higher interest payments on the new debt. That’s making life difficult for a new administration that also wants to eliminate tax on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits, along with other giveaways.
Gaze Into Our Crystal Ball
As President Donald Trump’s first year in office drew to a close, Washington gave us the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. That legislation reformed the system in conventional Republican fashion by broadening the base (subjecting more income to tax) and lowering rates. On the corporate side, they did this mainly by closing avenues to avoid tax on international income. On the individual side, they did it by raising standard deductions and eliminating or limiting personal deductions such as mortgage interest and state and local taxes.
Good News Bad News
Dying without a will is a great way for a celebrity to waste money on unnecessary taxes. It also means their assets can wind up with someone they never would have chosen. When Doors frontman Jim Morrison died at age 27, his estate passed to his wife, Pamela Courson. Just a few weeks after a court finalized her inheritance, she OD’d, with no will—and Morrison’s estate passed to her parents. Morrison’s mom and dad had to spend six years fighting in court for 50% of the Lizard King’s royalties.