Last week, the House passed the “tax extenders” bill that renewed 55 tax advantages for taxpayers. The extenders include such benefits as the educator deduction, qualified tuition and related expenses, mortgage insurance premiums, and numerous other business-related deductions (the full list can be seen here). All of these items were extended through the end of 2014. Meaning, we will be revisiting this vote again in 2015. Although we had been waiting on the extenders to pass for quite some time, it seems tax season will be starting right on schedule this year.
One thing to note from the tax extenders is the renewal of the tax-free transfer from an IRA to charity. This has been in effect since 2006 and allows taxpayers who are 70.5 or older to transfer up to $100,000 from an IRA each year to charity, tax-free. I mention this because the transfer must be completed by the end of 2014. So taxpayers only have until Wednesday to make the transfer for 2014.
