Professionals call it tax planning. Analysts call them tax games. We’re calling them tax hacks. Every tax bill has little incentives or loopholes that encourage some behaviors and discourage others. The bill recently passed by the Senate is no different: It is full of little opportunities to make money — or at least save some.
We’ve put together a list of some of the most interesting and useful tricks, with help from some of the country’s leading experts in law and finance. This isn’t meant to be real tax advice — for that you’ll need to hire a professional — but it does shed light on the key features (or holes) in the Senate bill.
Many are changes that involve doing something right now, in the final days of 2017. Others would take longer to pull off but could have lasting payoffs, reaching into the next generation.
We focused on the Senate’s version of the legislation, because experts say the final bill is likely to resemble it in important ways. But Senate and House negotiators are still working out a compromise, so some rules might change before the bill becomes law. Here are some money-making opportunities in the current legislation, ranked by degree of difficulty.
