(Host) Accountants say they’ve gotten a lot of calls this year from people who wonder whether the financial crisis should change the way they plan for their taxes.
As VPR’s Ross Sneyd reports, the accountants say now’s the time to plan.
(Sneyd) For individual taxpayers, the collapse of Wall Street and the housing market should little effect.
Mostly, they’ll notice only if they sell stocks or sell their home.
Colleen Montgomery is with the Vermont Society of Certified Public Accountants.
(Montgomery) “Well, if you have huge losses and you haven’t actually sold anything, they’re still what we call paper losses or sometimes we call them unrealized losses. They don’t have any effect on your tax return or your tax preparation at all. They certainly have an effect on how well you sleep at night.”
(Sneyd) CPAs say there are some things for people to think about if they have relatively large portfolios.
Montgomery says making those decisions now is less important for 2008 taxes than they are for the future.
(Montgomery) “And they may affect decisions about, gee how soon am I going to be able to retire? How much am I going to be able to give to my children this year? A lot of CPAs have been advising clients with larger portfolios to gift money and now financial advisers are telling them maybe you want to hold back because you may need this money instead of giving it to your children.”
(Sneyd) Business owners have a lot more decisions to make. Some of them should be made before the end of the year but others can be made once 2009 arrives.
For VPR News, I’m Ross Sneyd.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma