Course Category: Interactive Self-Study eBook

Governments have historically used a “carrot and stick” approach to encouraging individuals and businesses to behave in ways it deems desirable: tax credits for acting as requested and tax penalties for failing to behave as required. The U.S. government similarly promotes multiple forms of socially-beneficial actions—adopting children, becoming employed, providing funds for dependents’ education, and…

The SECURE Act 2.0 became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 enacted on December 29, 2022. It contains a wide range of provisions designed to encourage retirement savings. Additionally, it brings about changes affecting required minimum distributions, Roth IRAs and designated Roth accounts. The Act addresses desirable outcomes, including:•    Creating improved…

Each year, various limits affecting income tax preparation and planning change. Some changes commonly occur each year as a result of inflation indexing, while others occur because of new legislation or the sunsetting of existing law. This course will examine the tax changes affecting 2025 as a result of passage of the SECURE Act 2.0…

Employer-sponsored retirement plans, generally referred to in the aggregate as qualified employee plans, constitute one of the important “legs” of the retirement stool that individuals look to for their income in retirement. The other two legs of that stool are personal savings—through investment in securities, deferred annuities, savings accounts, etc.—and Social Security retirement benefits. This…

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), signed into law during the closing days of 2017, significantly affects tax planning and the income tax liability for many taxpayers. This course will examine the principal changes affecting individual taxpayers made by the TCJA and the current limits applicable to them.  It examines the provisions…

The Internal Revenue Service routinely processes more than 200 million tax returns each year, many of them prepared by tax professionals. Not surprisingly, as tax law becomes increasingly complex, taxpayers often seek for the knowledgeable assistance of attorneys, CPAs, enrolled agents and other qualified tax return preparers. To help ensure such professionals understand their ethical responsibilities…

Federal tax policy is designed to accomplish numerous goals, from funding government to encouraging socially-beneficial actions such as saving for retirement. ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, was created principally to meet the latter objective.ERISA created an individual retirement arrangement—usually referred to simply as an IRA—to encourage taxpayers who were not participants in an…

One of the important considerations in many financial transactions is the tax treatment the transaction is given. Often, the impact of taxation is a consideration in the purchase of life insurance every bit as much as it applies to stock purchases, bond purchases and the establishment of qualified retirement plans. In this course we will look…

The Internal Revenue Service routinely processes more than 240 million tax returns each year, many of them prepared by tax professionals. Not surprisingly, as tax law becomes increasingly complex, taxpayers often seek the assistance of knowledgeable professionals to represent them with respect to tax and other matters before the IRS. However, the ability to represent…

Principles of Wealth Management examines the financial planning discipline, including Its need, as evidenced by the U.S. poverty rate, the U.S. savings rate, the lack of financial retirement readiness and the ever-increasing cost of higher education. The course details the principal steps in developing a financial plan, the critical issues in managing and protecting wealth,…