With rising interest rates, inflation and continuing market volatility, tax planning is as essential as ever for taxpayers looking to manage cash flow while paying the least amount of taxes possible over time. As we approach year-end, now is the time for individuals, business owners and family offices to review their 2022 and 2023 tax situations and identify opportunities for reducing, deferring or accelerating their tax obligations.

The 2023 Affordable Care Act (ACA) Open Enrollment period marks the tenth year of Health Insurance Marketplaces opening their doors to new enrollees. This year’s open enrollment season will last from November 1, 2022, to January 15, 2023, in most states, longer in some state-based marketplaces. Even after a decade of operation, there continue to be changes in these markets. Keep an eye on:

The CARES Act of March 2020, Relief Act of 2021, and American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided trillions of dollars in government-backed financial incentives to U.S. companies to help them weather the COVID-19 pandemic. These financial incentives proved extremely valuable at a time when uncertainty about the future of the economy was at its highest.

Today, more and more businesses are outsourcing different areas and departments to run their business leaner. Today's business owners can ultimately outsource anything.

Required Minimum Distributions (RMD) are required taxable distributions from qualified retirement plans and are commonly associated with traditional IRAs, but they also apply to 401(k)s and SEP IRAs. The tax code does not allow taxpayers to indefinitely keep funds in their qualified retirement plans. Eventually, these assets must be distributed, and taxes must be paid on those distributions. If a retirement plan owner takes no distributions, or if the distributions are not large enough, then he or she may have to pay a 50% penalty on the required distribution amount that is not distributed.

If you’re 50 or older, there is one benefit to reaching this milestone that you may be overlooking: tax breaks aimed right at you. Now you can contribute more to your Roth or traditional individual retirement account (IRA), to your employer-sponsored plan or to your health savings account (HSA) than you could when you were younger. You can even exclude more income from your tax computations.

The Brinker Simpson Annual Frank Baldino Food Drive is underway and will run thru Monday, December 5th.

The Internal Revenue Service is warning employers to be wary of third parties who are advising them to claim the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) when they may not qualify. Some third parties are taking improper positions related to taxpayer eligibility for and computation of the credit.

The IRS recently issued its 2023 cost-of-living adjustments for more than 60 tax provisions. With inflation up significantly this year, many amounts increased considerably over 2022 amounts. As you implement 2022 year-end tax planning strategies, be sure to take these 2023 adjustments into account.