Although NIIT mainly hits people who consistently have a high income, it can also affect anyone who has a big gain or one-time profit this year or another year. For example, if you sell shares of the company for a big profit, get a big bonus, or even sell a house for a big profit, you may have to pay. What to do? Here are strategies you should use by the end of the year to avoid or minimize your exposure to the 3.8% tax. If you`ve been bitten by net capital gains tax (NIIT) in the past three years, you may now be ready to explore strategies that will avoid or reduce your exposure. This additional tax can affect anyone with a consistently high income or with a significant single income or profit. If you rely on sippa`s 100-hour rule, you cannot necessarily avoid some of the other negative outcomes resulting from non-compliance with the general standards of material participation (for example, any loss may continue to be suspended under the passive loss rules and you may need to amortize your share of R&D expenses over 10 years for alternative minimum tax purposes), but if you have significant K-1 income from an LLC or S-Corp, or if you`re about to make a significant profit from selling one, then this rule could potentially save you a lot of taxpayer money. SEE ALSO: Other Ways to Avoid a New 3.8% Capital Gains Tax As explained earlier, the new 3.8% Medicare tax reaches the lower value of: (1) your net capital income or (2) the amount by which your MAGI exceeds the applicable threshold. Therefore, planning strategies must be aligned with the right objective in order to achieve the desired effect of avoiding or minimizing your tax burden. For many taxpayers who have limited interests in a business, the easiest way to avoid the 3.8% tax may be to rely on what was originally supposed to be the “gotcha” rule (called the “SIPPA” rule) in passive loss of business regulations, which are designed to prevent taxpayers from converting non-passive income into passive income (to offset passive losses). The core of the rule is that if you spend more than 100 hours per year on an activity (but less than 500 hours per year and you cannot aggregate those hours with hours from other activities to reach 500 hours), the income from the activity is treated as non-passive, while the loss is treated as passive. This rule is usually a “head that we (the government) win, tails that you (the taxpayer) lose.” However, when it comes to avoiding the 3.8% tax, this old rule seems to be a victory for the taxpayer.

As you can see, high-income taxpayers with capital gains have certain planning options when it comes to limiting the impact of the additional tax, but in many cases there may be no way to avoid it. Result? NIIT is complex and all strategies should be discussed with your tax and investment advisors prior to implementation to avoid further unintended tax consequences. The new 3.8% Medicare tax on net capital income went into effect on Jan. 1. This only affects people with higher incomes, but it can include anyone who has a large, unique dose of investment income or profits this year (or any other year). For example, if you sell shares of certain companies for a big profit, you could be a victim. What to do? Read this for the first part of our two-part series on strategies you can use until the end of the year to avoid paying the new tax or minimize your risk. If the sale of S Corporation had avoided tax under the Active Trading or Business Exemption, would that profit survive a tax-free merger of S Corporation into C Corporation and reduce final net capital income on a taxable sale of the shares received as part of the merger? Nothing in the statutes, technical declaration or regulations addresses this issue.

For this purpose, MAGI is defined as your “normal” adjusted gross income (GII) from the last line of page 1 of your Form 1040 plus certain foreign sources exclude income minus certain deductions and exclusions (most people are not affected by this supplement). In addition, net investment income does not include the gain from the sale of a personal residence that is excluded from gross income for regular income tax purposes. To the extent that profit is excluded from gross income for regular income tax purposes, it is not subject to net capital gains tax. An additional tax of 3.8% in addition to a capital gains tax of 20% corresponds to an additional tax of 19%. While it is appropriate to minimize tax as much as possible, the Joint Committee on Taxation warned in March 2010 that the IRS would closely review transactions that manipulate a taxpayer`s net capital income in order to reduce or eliminate the amount of section 1411 tax. Read on to understand this tax and the considerations for its application. Sale of business assets When a corporation is sold, only the net profit attributable to real estate held by the corporation, which is not real estate attributable to an active business or business, is subject. However, income, gains or losses on working capital are not considered to arise from a business or business and are therefore taxable.4 A net gain from the sale of shares of partnerships or shares of members of LLC by a partner or member who is actively involved in the business should be exempt from tax because a sale of interests in a partnership or LLC directly as a sale of partnership or assets of LLC 9 This result is different from the sale of shares of an S-Corporation, which makes a strong distinction between stock transactions and asset transactions. . Support.

Reg. Article 1.1411-7(a)(4)(i) states that the transaction will be made as a sale of the underlying assets. If a person owes net capital tax, they must file Form 8960 PDF. Form 8960 PDF Instructions provides details on how to calculate the amount of taxable capital gains. Fortunately, you are only exposed to niIT if your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) exceeds the applicable threshold of:. If a person has investment income, they may be subject to net capital gains tax. Effective January 1, 2013, individual taxpayers will be subject to a net capital gains tax of 3.8% on the lesser amount of their net investment income or on the amount by which their amended adjusted gross income exceeds the legislated threshold based on their reporting status. • If your net return on capital is less than your excess MAGI amount, your tax exposure will depend primarily on your net return on capital. So you should first focus on strategies that reduce net investment income. In my next column, I`ll cover some specific strategies to achieve this.

Of course, some strategies that reduce net investment income will also reduce MAGI. If so, it can`t hurt. This is stated in the preamble to the draft regulation and in the Prop. §1.1411-7(a)(4)(iii)(c) Treatment of Qualified Trusts under Subchapter S (QSSTS).10 The Health Insurance Premium Tax on Unearned Income was enacted under the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 with a delayed effective date of January 1, 2013.1 The tax survived discussions on the repeal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, it is therefore still applicable. Without further indication, the sale of shares of S Corporation, even by a shareholder who is actively involved in the business, appears to be subject to tax. Fortunately, the law itself provides for an exception. Section 1411(c)(4) states that in the event of a sale of an interest in a partnership or S corporation, profit is taken into account for tax purposes only in the amount of net profit that would be taken into account if all the assets of the partnership or S corporation were sold at fair value immediately before the sale of that interest. The NIIT can affect people with higher incomes who have investment income.

(This can also affect estates and trusts, but we`ll only focus on individuals here.) In the event of a sale of shares of S Corporation under an election under section 338(h)(10) or section 336(e), the sale of shares will not be considered and the transaction will be taxable as the sale of an accepted asset. . The Net Capital Gains Tax (NIIT) is actually an additional 3.8% Medicare tax on capital gains. It entered into force for the first time in 2013. After filing your 2014 tax return, you experienced the joys of this additional tax for two years. Now, you may be ready to become proactive by taking steps to stop or at least slow down bleeding for this year and beyond. Good! Start. The net investment income tax is separate from the new supplementary medicare tax, which also came into effect on January 1, 2013. You may be subject to both taxes, but not on the same type of income.

The additional 0.9% tax on health insurance applies to the wages, remuneration and self-employment income of people above certain thresholds, but not to income items included in net capital income. Net capital income generally does not include wages, unemployment benefits, social security benefits, alimony and most of the income of the self-employed. Mark Sellner advises on corporate and executive tax matters, including the tax consequences of buying and selling a business. .