As the end of the year approaches, it is a good time to employ strategies that may help lower your 2009 tax bill and better position you for 2010. To help get you started, J.H. Cohn is pleased to make available the 2009-2010 WebTaxGuide, which highlights tax law changes you may need to be aware of and provides planning strategies for all types of situations. Click here for online access to the Guide.

There are several significant tax law changes that make year-end tax planning particularly urgent this year:

• The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 provides a first-time homebuyer credit of 10 percent of the purchase price (up to $8,000) and enhanced net operating loss (NOL) carryback rules for certain small businesses. Both benefits were extended and enhanced when Congress passed the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009. Bonus depreciation and enhanced "section 179 expensing," both designed to temporarily encourage businesses to make capital investments, will expire after December 31, 2009 unless Congress extends them.
  
  
• For businesses, the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act enhanced the ability to carry back NOLs. Most businesses will be eligible to elect to carry back applicable NOLs and obtain refunds of taxes paid in prior years. An applicable NOL is the taxpayer's NOL for a tax year ending after December 31, 2007 and beginning before January 1, 2010. Many variables factor into taking this benefit, and some of them may be able to be changed by year-end before 2009 NOLs are set in stone.
  
  
• Tax changes on the horizon are also crucial to effective year-end tax planning. In 2010, the opportunity to convert any IRA into a Roth IRA without the long-time $100,000 adjusted gross income restriction has many individuals already setting aside funds. 
  
  
• Effective for 2011, the Obama administration has proposed to increase the income and capital gains tax rates on single individuals with incomes of more than $200,000 and married couples with incomes exceeding $250,000.

Get a head start and review the information in the J.H. Cohn 2009-2010 WebTaxGuide and reach out to your engagement partner or J.H. Cohn representative.  We will continue to keep you informed, through our tax alerts and other media, about important changes in tax legislation and relevant strategies. 

The information included herein is not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer for the purpose of i) avoiding penalties the IRS and others may impose on the taxpayer or ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any tax related matters. (The foregoing disclosure has been affixed pursuant to U.S. Treasury Regulations governing tax practice.)