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Expecting tax cuts next year? President-elect Trump declared one of his top priorities to be passage of a “major tax bill lowering taxes in this country.” Affected taxpayers who believe that promise will kick in for 2017 should revisit their 2016 year-end tax plans as a way to maximize possible windfall savings next year. Example: Defer income (such as bonuses, or if you’re a cash-basis taxpayer, payments for services) to...

Distributor’s TV packages don’t qualify. In two similar Technical Advice Memorandums, the IRS determined that a television subscription package sold by a multichannel video programming distributor isn’t a “qualified film” for purposes of the domestic production activities deduction (DPAD). In addition, gross receipts derived by the distributor from its packages aren’t domestic production gross receipts. With the DPAD, taxpayers can claim a deduction to offset income from domestic manufacturing and...

Taxpayers denied child tax breaks. For part of a year, a married couple lived with a child from the wife’s previous marriage. The couple claimed a dependency exemption deduction and a child tax credit on their joint tax return. The child’s father apparently also claimed the child as a dependent on his return. The IRS disallowed the couple’s tax breaks. The U.S. Tax Court agreed. The taxpayers couldn’t prove they...