As part of a highway funding bill recently passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law by the President, there were some tacked on items related to changes in the tax code.

One of them was a change in the filing due date for Partnership tax returns. These are the 1065 forms your club files each year.

Starting in 2017 (2016 taxes), these returns will be due on March 15. They are currently due on April 15.

So this doesn't affect the 2015 taxes you will prepare in early 2016, but it is coming.

The reason for the change was so tax preparers could get partnership information in enough time to prepare personal taxes.

This is the same reason most of you probably were getting your club returns done in early March anyway, so hopefully this won't be a big change.

But it is a good reason to make sure you know how to check the cost basis and capital gains when you have sales during the year against what you have recorded in bivio.

There is no reason you have to wait to receive 1099 forms to do this. If you do it during the year you won't have any surprises to work on when you get your 1099 forms and you won't have to worry about feeling rushed to get your taxes done.

Here's how to make the checks:

Checking Cost Basis

Laurie Frederiksen
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The issue is not with us getting the tax forms to you, the issue that is the bottleneck is your broker getting you the 1099 forms you need to finalize your taxes. They are supposed to get them to you by Feb 15 but some send them out later than that.

If you keep up on checking the cost basis of your stocks when you have a sale and avoid investments in things like REIT's that may delay your 1099 forms, there should be no reason you can't do all the work of getting your bivio records correct during the year or in January at the latest so when you do get the 1099 forms, it will only take a moment to do a quick final check against the bivio information and a few minutes to generate your tax forms.

I have not heard what the states are doing. I will let you know if I do. You might also contact the CA state revenue dept to ask. I have a feeling the state requirements might be all over the map.

You can file for a 6 month Federal extension if you can't meet the March 15 filing date.

Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends!
www.bivio.com

Become our Facebook friend! www.facebook.com/bivio
Follow us on twitter! www.twitter.com/bivio
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