Accounting firms Crowe LLP and BKD LLP released year-end tax-planning guides Wednesday, during a time of great uncertainty over future tax changes in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the upcoming election.
Crowe’s Tax Planning: 2020 Year-End Guide discusses a number of issues, including recent legislation passed in Congress in response to COVID-19, such as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).
ProtectWise CTO and co-founder Gene Stevens drives the company’s technology vision and architecture. He is a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in software development, cloud computing, security-as-a-service, and distributed systems. Prior to founding ProtectWise, Gene was the Founder and CTO at TagLabs, a mobile tagging company. He was previously a Principal Software Engineer at McAfee, Cloud & Content Security, developing the company’s email, web security and data loss prevention products. He joined McAfee upon its acquisition of MX Logic where he was Senior Software Engineer. Gene also held a lead engineering role with GDX, developing secure email and file transfer services based in Tokyo. Early in his career, Gene developed financial forecasting, market analysis and service capacity planning software for Hewitt Associates (Aon). Gene is an expert and a leader on scalability, high throughput and low latency services, and distributed systems design. He is a frequent speaker at security and technology conferences and is covered by the media. Gene is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Open Information Security Foundation in support of open-source security technologies.
Charlene Glidden is vice president of planning and technology strategy at Colonial Life, a leading insurance provider. Glidden is responsible for ensuring the company business strategy is realized through sound business and technology investments made through effective planning and technology execution. She is also accountable for providing data and analytics services within the company. She joined Colonial Life in 2016 after a 20-year career with Unum serving in information technology, shared services and business leadership roles at the company’s Portland, Maine and Chattanooga, Tenn., locations.
Glidden previously served on the board of the Susan Curtis Foundation in Maine, which serves economically disadvantaged children to increase college graduation rates; and Maine Robotics, which provides Maine youth and teachers with mentored activities within the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Glidden holds a master of business administration degree from Boston University.
Mark Bregman is chief technology officer at NetApp.
“Navigating the current landscape can be tricky and confusing,” said Gary Fox, managing partner of tax services at Crowe, in a statement. “It is important to stay on top of all the fast-moving law changes of the past six months and to remain prepared for the possible changes in the near future.”
Other topics include standard deductions vs. itemizing, state and local tax deductions, home-related breaks and tax-advantaged saving for health care. The guide also covers family-oriented tax breaks such as child, dependent and adoption credits, dependent care breaks, the “kiddie tax,” Section 529 plans, education savings accounts and Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts.
The Crowe guide also covers investor issues, such as capital gains taxes and timing, being tax-smart with losses, mutual funds, income investments and 3.8 percent net investment income tax. Business-related tax topics include business structure, Section 199A deductions for pass-through businesses, projecting income, depreciation, vehicle-related depreciation, meals, entertainment and transportation, employee benefits, tax credits and the self-employed.
Retirement tax topics include 401(k)s and other employer plans, more tax-deferred options, Roth alternatives, early withdrawals, required minimum distributions, IRA donations to charity and the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act).
Estate-planning topics in the guide include estate taxes, gift taxes, the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax, state taxes, exemption portability and tax-smart giving.
The Crowe guide also covers income tax rates for individuals, corporations and estates and trusts.
The BKD Year-End Tax Advisor aims to help businesses and individuals with their year-end planning decisions and the development of an effective tax strategy, given the recent changes in requirements, updated regulations and new tax laws this year.
“2020 has been a year like no other, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting each of our lives, businesses and communities in ways many of us have never experienced,” said BKD director of tax quality control Jesse Palmer in a statement. “Solid tax planning is probably more important than it’s ever been before as you work to create a healthy financial future for yourself and your business.”
The BKD Year-End Tax Advisor includes reminders for the year ahead. More than a dozen contributors have written 18 articles for the guide, including discussions of how COVID-19 has affected various industries, charitable giving and information-reporting reminders.
