Work two full-time W-2 jobs and each employer withholds Social Security tax as if it were your only paycheck. That over-withholds Social Security and refunds the excess, while quietly under-withholding the Medicare surtax and your income tax. Here is how the Social Security wage base and the excess Social Security credit actually land on an overemployed return.
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Move from San Francisco to Austin before a liquidity event and the FTB may decide you never really left. Here is how a California FTB residency audit applies §17014 and the Bragg factors, and what is actually at stake on $4 million of RSU income.
Read postAn S corporation pays payroll tax only on the salary, not the distributions. Two politicians showed how far that goes, and the IRS has been drawing the line ever since.
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Filing Form 4547 is now a short online wizard inside your IRS account. Here is how to file Form 4547 online in 2026 to open a Trump Account for your child and claim the free $1,000 federal contribution, step by step.
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Elon Musk has pledged more than 236 million Tesla shares to banks. Carl Icahn carried a $1.2 billion loan and paid $0 federal income tax in two separate years. This is the buy, borrow, die tax strategy, how it works, the IRC §1014 step-up that makes it permanent, and what the 2026 law and Moore v. United States changed.
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Weeks before Facebook went public, co-founder Eduardo Saverin gave up his US passport and moved his roughly 4% stake to Singapore. The move drew a Senate bill named after him and saved a reported nine figures in future US tax. Here is how the exit tax for renouncing US citizenship works under IRC §877A, who counts as a covered expatriate at the 2026 numbers, and why the date you leave decides the bill.
Read postAudrey Walton put $200 million of Walmart stock into two GRATs and reported a $0 taxable gift. The Tax Court blessed it, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson later moved $7.9 billion to his heirs the same way. Here is how the grantor retained annuity trust estate tax strategy works, the Walton case that made it bulletproof, and what a zeroed-out GRAT saves at the 2026 numbers.
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Donald Trump claimed a $21.1 million charitable deduction for a conservation easement on land he kept. The strategy is legal, but the fight is always about the appraised number. Here is how the conservation easement tax deduction works, what the §170(h)(7) crackdown changed, and how the 2026 charitable rules shift the math.
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Peter Thiel turned a $1,700 Roth IRA into a $5 billion tax-free account by buying founder shares inside it. The strategy is legal, but the line between a brilliant move and a detonated IRA runs straight through IRC §4975. Here is how it works and where it goes wrong.
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Your RSUs vested, the company sold shares to cover the tax, and you still got a five-figure bill in April. The reason is the flat 22% supplemental wage withholding rate. If your bracket is 32% or 35%, that rate is built to come up short. Here is the 2026 math and the two ways to close the gap before you owe a penalty.
Read postHigh earners are told the backdoor Roth is a free move: contribute to a nondeductible IRA, convert it, owe nothing. Then the tax software says most of the conversion is taxable. The reason is the pro-rata rule and the old rollover IRA you forgot about. Here is the 2026 Form 8606 math and the one fix that has to happen before December 31.
Read postMost people think the inherited IRA 10-year rule just means emptying the account by year ten. After the IRS final regulations, a non-spouse beneficiary of someone who died after their required beginning date must take an annual RMD in years one through nine, and the real cost is the tax bill waiting in year ten. Here is the 2026 math.
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