The last-minute fiscal cliff deal made several changes to the tax code. Most of the new tax law focuses on the 2013 tax brackets and tax credits and deductions going forward. One key area of concern were tax policies that expired at the end of 2011 but hadn’t been renewed for the 2012 tax year.
The American Taxpayer Relief Act retroactively restores many of those tax credits and deductions for the 2012 tax year. In turn, it could affect your tax return due this April. Hopefully, in a good way. It’s just too bad it took Congress until January 1st to fix the code. As I point out below, it’s caused a delay to the tax season that will affect many taxpayers. Continue Reading…
It’s finally official! After too much debate, the House vote showed up fashionably late. The 2013 federal income tax brackets were finalized on the first day of the new year.
Every year market pundits and media set out to predict the future. As you would expect (or maybe you wouldn’t?), their success rate falls short of a great batting average. But despite all this, they come back each year to repeat the exercise. Once again, we join the rank and file with some less outlandish market predictions for the year.
It’s safe to say the stock market has been kind to investors this year. The S&P 500 is up about 17% with a handful of trading days left. A great year for any investor. Still, the S&P is just an average with many outliers. Which brings us to the 2012 Best and Worst Market Awards. A collection of outliers that helped form the S&P 500 performance for the year.