Episode 28: CA Middle Class Tax Refund; Is Biden’s Student Loans Forgiveness Taxable?

IRS Tax Update with Ron, Episode 28: CA Middle Class Tax Refund; Is Biden’s Student Loans Forgiveness Taxable?

If you’ve had any student loan debt cancelled as a result of President Biden’s New Executive Order on Student Loan Forgiveness, be prepared when it comes time to file your tax return. That $10,000 of debt cancellation may be considered taxable income.

Also the middle class in California is receiving a nice surprise… the state is calling it a tax refund? Whether you call this coming check an inflation stimulus a tax refund or simply the redistribution of wealth, California brought in more money than they expected and surprisingly they’re giving it back.

Tax Links

IRS

Forgiven Student Loans partially taxable?
https://justthenews.com/government/state-houses/thirteen-states-may-tax-canceled-student-loans

California middle class tax refund.
https://www.ftb.ca.gov/about-ftb/newsroom/middle-class-tax-refund/index.html?WT.ac=Global_banner_MCTR

About The Show:
Hello and welcome. This is Ron Cohen. I’m a tax partner with the firm of Partner at Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP and we’re located in beautiful downtown Fremont, California. I appreciate you signing in to listen to my self indulgent, and sometimes narcissistic comments about the tax system.

No Reliance:
Take no reliance and anything you hear on this podcast. This is mostly for entertainment and education. In order to get an opinion from me or me firm you have to sign an engagement and give us all of the facts. After we do some research about your situation we’ll come back and formally give you an opinion. And only then can you use that advice for purposes of entering into any transaction or filing a tax return.

Plagiarism is Okay!
Everything in tax rule is laws are from the internal revenue codes, regulations, arrays, court cases, various internal memorandum by the Internal Revenue Service. Lots of lawyers and CPAs write very good articles that we will often attach in the show notes. And just trying to show how smart they are the public so everyone copies from everyone else and I certainly want to give credit. We’re not writing any novels or original thoughts here.

No Politics
We try to stay out of general politics, however tax law is developed through legislation in Congress and anything that’s legislative has its own political ups and downs. And I feel free to comment on that.

How I Help:
Our my firm does around 1400 tax returns for various people. The demographics range from little grandmothers all the way up to high tech executives and multinational corporations. We also specialize in family office services for wealthy groups with far flung entities and we also help those groups with things such as bill paying and taking care of their day to day financial operations

No Cheerleader for the Tax System
Our tax system is intrusive, an invasion of privacy and It’s tedious. You need to look at a 12 step flowchart to figure out in some cases whether you can take your mortgage interest deduction. It is part of the technocratic administrative state that is built up in this country since World War Two, and I don’t like it.

Other countries have simplified the tax system in many ways, despite this we always try to get an A+ on our work and make sure it is accurate.

Please let us know if there are specific topics you’d like to hear about in future episodes.

Ron Cohen, CPA
Partner at Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP
rcohen@groco.com
510.797.8661

We hope you found this podcast “Tax update with Ron, Episode 28: CA Middle Class Tax Refund; Is Biden’s Student Loans Forgiveness Taxable?” helpful.  If you have questions or need expert tax or family office advice that’s refreshingly objective (we never sell investments), please contact us or visit our Family office page  or our website at www.GROCO.com.

Ron Cohen, CPA
Partner at Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP  CPAs & Advisors
Email: rcohen@groco.com
510.797.8661

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Click here to learn more about Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP (GROCO.com)  Advisors to the ultra-affluent.

About GROCO:

Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP is a full-service Certified Public Accounting firm located in the Silicon Valley region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It has been consistently ranked as one of the top family office tax, strategy and advisory firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded by Morey Greenstein, the practice has grown into a premier regional family office tax, strategy and advisory firm with offices in the Kansas City and San Francisco Bay Areas.

GROCO® provides strategic family office tax, strategy and advisory,  financial, wealth preservation, business valuation, planning and consulting services to high net worth individuals, closely-held businesses and individuals expecting significant liquidity events. Specific expertise includes delivering these services to Venture Capital partners, individuals, and family offices. Many named partners in the largest VC firms are long-time clients of GROCO.

About Ron Cohen, CPA, MST, Partner GROCO:

Ron has more than 3 decades of experience in public accounting and related industry work. Ron has extensive knowledge in International Tax and has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia handling tax issues. He has also served as a tax director for a company with sales in excess of $2 billion. Ron previously taught courses in taxation and financial accounting at a local College.

Prior to his life as a CPA advisors, Ron did some stand-up comedy in Chicago and received advice from several comedians with national T.V. shows. However, after observing that the vast majority of comedians have a very low taxable income, Ron decided to follow his father’s example and become a CPA.  He earned an undergraduate accounting degree from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and then a Masters in Taxation from Golden Gate University. Ron lives in Fremont with his wife, who teaches high school English, and has two sons and two grandchildren.