“Tis the season to do taxes, fa la la …” I must confess that I was so absorbed during 2007 with the creation of Decision Driven® Life and Strategy, that I neglected proactive decision-making concerning ways to control my tax obligations. It’s time to pay up and it’s quite painful. Of course, it doesn’t help that Congress played political football with the AMT patch so long that they could have held an AMT bowl game after Christmas.
NOTE TO SELF: Use the Decision Driven® Life pattern and work through the “Strategy to Control Taxes” decision before mid-year. This decision is an important part of my overall Wealth Strategy.
I’ve framed this decision as, “What strategy (combination of methods) will I use to limit or control my tax obligations?” It’s likely that your alternatives for this decision will be a mixture of various tax control techniques. It’s also likely that your answer to this question will change over time, so I’ve added a child decision, Tax Control Methods, which is framed as “What specific methods will I use to control my tax obligations during this season of life?”. This decision could be updated annually to keep abreast with changes in the tax code, your sources of incomes and your season of life.
Here are some simple criteria to consider when thinking through tax control strategies:
These should help keep you out of jail, but you might want to talk to a tax professional on this one.
Sooner, rather than later …
Filed under: Decision Driven Life, Sample Decisions | Tagged: decision, criteria, proactive decision-making, taxes, tax strategy, tax control, AMT, wealth, tax obligations
