Trump Accounts - Interesting Idea

https://www.trumpaccounts.gov/ 

The OBBBA created yet one more savings vehicle for parents and other relatives of children under age 18 to consider. While the new provisions are lengthy and a bit complicated, a good deal of understandable information is being pushed out by Treasury/IRS (such as https://www.trumpaccounts.gov/) and it is an interesting savings vehicle worth looking into.

New Section 530A basically allows new accounts that operate much like a traditional IRA only they are for kids under age 18 and have restrictions on what they can invest in. Up to $5,000 can be contributed to the account annually (this amount is adjusted for inflation starting in 2028) until the year of the child's 17th birthday. Of this amount, up to $2,500 can be contributed by an employer (per employee per year rather than per employee Trump Account) if the employer creates this employee benefit, written, per guidance to be issued by the IRS. The $2,500 is tax free to the employee (Section 128).

For a baby born in 2025 through 2028, the government will put $1,000 into the account if the baby is a US citizen and has an SSN and the parent or other relative makes the election. This doesn't count towards the maximum $5,000 contribution per year. The $1,000 is treated as a tax refund so not taxable. 

No distributions are allowed until the year the child turns 18 but the goal is for the child to learn about future value, savings and perhaps a bit about taxes, and let the money continue to grow. The child can start contributing via IRA rules once working and keeping the account. If disciplined, to keep the account and not pull it out for a new car or big party, the account could grow tremendously. For example, parents starting one in 2026 (contributions can't start until 7/4/26) for their 3-year old child, contributing $5,000 per year until age 17 (15 contributions), assuming a 5% rate of return will have almost $108,000 at that time. If no further contributions, when the child is 60, the balance would be about $837,000.

You need to track basis in the account and if a state doesn't conform, also track state tax basis in the account. If would be a lot simpler if states conform.
For more information:

• Website where apparently by July 2026 you can elect to set up an account - https://www.trumpaccounts.gov/

• Form 4547, Trump Account Election(s)

• Notice 2025-68

I offer a few suggestions to make these accounts more enticing and protected:

1. Add a provision similar to Section 529(c)(2)(A)(i) that contributions to the account on behalf of any designated beneficiary is treated as a completed gift to that beneficiary which is NOT a future interest in property to make it clear that the gift can be exempt from reporting and gift tax under the $19,000 annual gift exclusion.

2. Encourage contributions and people not forgetting about the accounts by allowing tax refunds to be directed to the account(s).

3. Add more than a 10% withdrawal penalty to discourage 18-year-olds from emptying the account at age 18 or soon thereafter.  Provide an incentive to encourage them to convert the account to a traditional IRA and continue making contributions; the incentive might be another $1,000 into the account at age 21.

4. Encourage states to conform to the OBBBA Trump Account provisions to simplify tracking basis in the account and for conformity on annual tax effects.

5. Require trustees to make contact with beneficiaries (and parents until beneficiaries turn 18) because it is possible beneficiaries will forget about the account and the trustee will end up sending it to the state as unclaimed property at some point in the future. This regular contact would ideally include some financial literacy tips.

What do you think?

Let's stop hiding the income and outlay pie charts in an instruction booklet few read

Pie Charts from Form 1040 Instructions for 2025
see links below to get to a larger version

I've written and blogged on this topic before,* but I think it is worth repeating ...

IRC §7523 enacted in 1990 requires the IRS to include pie charts with explanation in the Form 1040 instruction booklet - actual text at §7523(a) is for "any booklet of instructions for Form 1040, 1040A, or 1040EZ."  We don't even have 1040A or 1040EZ anymore and people have not been mailed instruction booklets since 2010. While a pdf of the instructions is readily found on irs.gov, who looks at them?!  Someone might look at them to find information about a line on a return, but they likely don't get to page 121 out of 125 pages of the 2025 instruction booklet (see draft here and soon it will be here).

The charts show the percentage of income and outlays of the federal government within broad categories. The income one also show how much comes from borrowing (27% for 2024) and the outlays one shows that 13% of them go to pay interest on the this borrowing. While these are general charts, I think they are helpful for anyone to get a basic understanding of federal government activities and perhaps generate questions for elected officials and those running for office.

I suggest the following basic enhancements for this information:

• Along with the % put the dollar amount.
• Highlight that outlays are direct spending and not also spending in the tax system via special exclusions, deductions, and credits. Another pie chart showing tax expenditures by category, as the Joint Committee on Taxation and Treasury use when they present reports on tax expenditures. These categories include national defense, int'l affairs, energy, housing, transportation and education.
• Information on the tax gap should also be included such as from the IRS website which at 12/30/25 shows a net tax gap of $606 billion which is more than we collect from the corporate income tax ($530 billion for 2024 per JCT report at page 30).

And the pie charts need to be published beyond the 1040 instruction booklet and moved to the digital era.  They should be an icon perhaps on all federal government websites where people can click to get more details.

What do you think?

*"Time to move Sec. 7523 budget information into the Digital Age," AICPA Tax Insider, 11/8/12.  This article includes the first pie charts that appeared in the 1991 Form 1040 instructions + the 2010 charts.

Blog post of 11/10/12

"'Oh, I see:' Suggestions for Greater Tax Transparency," Tax Notes State, 11/20/17

Challenges with Tip Income Deduction, Particularly for 2025

I've blogged already on the inequities of the tip income deduction (9/10/25 post).  It also has some recordkeeping and compliance challenges for employers and employees, and payors and contractors. These challenges will be greater for 2025 because tipped workers won't have their qualified tips separately reported on their W-2, or 1099-NEC or 1099-K. That won't happen until 2026.

Recently, the IRS provided relief to employers and 1099 filers for 2025 because otherwise they could face penalties for not reporting the qualified tips. The IRS does encourage employers and others to find some way to get information to employees on their qualified tip amount and occupation code, such as via a written statement or online portal (see IR-2025-110 and Notice 2025-62).

Now you might think, don't tipped workers know how much their tip income is?  Well, they might, but do they know what their "qualified" tip amount was?  They are not the same thing!

For example, the following are tips, but not qualified tips that will generate a deduction for the worker.

• Tip received by a waiter at a restaurant but it was automatically added to the bill such as because it was a party of 6. This is not voluntarily paid so is not a qualified tip, even if the restaurant gave it to the waiter.
• The employee works for an employer who is a "specified service trade or business" (SSTB), such as theater or other performing arts business. This might also be confusing for employees with multiple jobs. For example, the bartender employee at the restaurant gets qualified tips (if paid voluntarily), but when she works at the performing arts center as an employee, those tips are not qualified.
• The worker might not be in one of the many listed occupations per a table in the proposed regulations (§1.224-1 at REG–11003225 (9/22/25)). The IRS says it will have the lists at this website, but it is not operational at 11/15/25 - https://www.irs.gov/TippedOccupations. 
• The tipped worker is an independent contractor such as a gardener without a 1099. Their tips are only qualified if they are reported on a Form 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC or 1099-K. If the gardener works for households and gets paid in cash, they won't get a 1099.  If they do work for businesses, they will get a 1099-NEC for 2025 if paid $600 or more. I'm assuming the contractor reports all income including the tips.  As soon as they can, contractors who don't get a 1099, such as because paid in cash by households, they should start taking credit or debit card or PayPal or Venmo so they will get a 1099-K.  We still don't know how PayPal and Venmo will get the tip info, likely they will be required to have the payor specify these amounts.

There is a lot of work here, particularly for the issuers of the W-2 and 1099s.  For example, one example in the proposed regulations is a restaurant where the point of sale machine only offers 3 options on tips:15%, 18% and 20%.  Since there is not an option to put in your own number including zero, this is not voluntary. BUT, since 15% is the minimum in this scenario, if someone tips 18% or 20%, that differential is a qualified tip!  Of course, the restaurant or other establishment with this fact pattern will need to have its recordkeeping system set up to capture this.

Payors will definitely want to get recordkeeping systems ready very soon to be ready to report qualified tips on reporting forms. They might also want to see about changing customer billing arrangements to ease compliance, by, for example, making all tip amounts voluntary.

What do you think?

Inequities of tip income deduction + tip for contractors providing services to non-business customers

The OBBBA (P.L. 119-21; 7/4/25) adds a new deduction of up to $25,000 for qualified tip income. I blogged on this idea before the text of the OBBBA proposal existed, noting several oddities of the deduction (2/23/25 post). Less than 3% of employees earn tip income (the Budget Lab at Yale estimates it is about 2.5% of employees and I cannot find an estimate of the number of contractors who get tips, but it likely is a higher percentage, but still a minority of contractors).

Why should these workers get a tax break that others with similar income levels don't get? Assume two employees each have wage income of $60,000 but for one worker, that figure incudes $10,000 of tip income. That employee will only have to include $50,000 in their taxable income and the non-tipped employee must include the entire $60,000 in their taxable income.  It might even be that the non-tipped employee worked more hours than the other employee. What is the rationale for this? Why not increase the standard deduction or the EITC or add a new bracket below the 10% bracket? Note that both of these employees do pay employment taxes on the same amount of earned income - $60,000.

Unlike some other tip tax break proposals, the OBBBA tip income deduction also applies to contractors with qualified tips. But an oddity in the law creates inequities for contractors because a qualification for a tip deduction is, per IRC §224, that the tip income be "included on statements furnished to the individual pursuant to section 6041(d)(3), 6041A(e)(3), 6050W(f)(2) or 6051(a)(18) or reported by the taxpayer [employee] on Form 4137 (or successor)."

OBBBA amends the above reporting rules to require the issuer to note any tip amount. For example, §6050W on issuance of Form 1099-K was amended to require issuers to make a separate reporting of the portion of reportable payments that "have been reasonably designated by payors as cash tips and the occupation" of the recipient. Thus, Congress only allows contractors to get a tip income deduction (assuming all other requirements are met) if they are reported on a 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC or 1099-K.

Contractors who provide services to non-businesses, such as to households, do not get a 1099-NEC. For example, consider two gardeners each earning $70,000 including tips, who accept payment only by cash or check. The one gardener provides services to businesses each of which receives $600 or more in services in 2025 ($2,000 in later years), so will get Forms 1099-NEC on which the payors will be required to show the cash tip amount. In contrast, the gardener providing the same value of services to households with the same portion of tip income, will not have any Forms 1099-NEC so will not be able to claim a tip income deduction.

This is illustrated on draft Schedule 1-A, Part II, which only has lines for reporting tip income reported on the forms noted above.

But, there is a possible solution for contractors who provide tipped services to non-business clients. Have clients pay by credit or debit card, or use a third party settlement organization such as PayPal or Venmo and be sure you have over 200 payments totaling over $20,000 for the year to be sure the TPSO has to issue you a 1099-K.  Guidance is not yet out, but I assume when it is, the TPSOs will ask payors how much, if any, of the amount transferred to someone for services is tip income and the occupation of the service provider. I assume that debit and credit card processors will have to start separately reporting the tip amount from charge receipts.

Was the required reporting on W-2, 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC or 1099-K purposeful by Congress to better ensure proper reporting of the tip income amount and the ability for the taxpayer, tax preparer and IRS to verify it? Perhaps, but it seems a bit harsh for contractors serving non-business clients when they are already required to keep proper records under §6001 and regulations.

AND, don't forget that §224 has a restriction that a worker receiving tips in a business that is a specified service trade or business (SSTB) under §199A(d)(2) cannot claim the tip income deduction.  An SSTB is a business in the field of health, law, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, consulting, athletics, financial services, brokerage services, or any trade or business where the principal asset of such trade or business is the reputation or skill of 1 or more of its employees, or which involves performance of services that consist of investing and investment management, trading, or dealing in securities (§475(c)(2)), partnership interests, or commodities.

This is also an oddity and unfair.  For example, a dancer, singer or magician employed by a casino or restaurant is eligible for the tip income deduction (assuming all requirements are met) because restaurants and casinos are not SSTBs. However, a dancer, singer or magician working for a company that provider entertainers for parties or is a theater company, appears to be an SSTB making these employees ineligible for the tip income deduction (see Reg. 1.199A-5 for more on SSTB). Seems unfair since regardless of the employer, they are in a tipped profession.  Overall, the tax law would be more equitable to remove SSTB from §199A where it also creates inequities for some businesses that are SSTBs.

The tip income deduction will only be around for four years, unless extended. Hopefully the roughly 90% of workers who don't get this tax break even though they have earned income equal to or less than tipped workers, will seek its repeal with any income tax break instead tied to providing it to low to middle income workers based on income rather than occupation and who they work for.

What do you think?

OBBBA Includes 2 Marriage Penalties, 1 Neutral, and 1 Marriage Bonus

A marriage penalty exists in the tax system where, all things being the same, the taxes of two single individuals goes up when they get married. A marriage bonus occurs when combined tax liability goes down when two single people marry. And some provisions result in no change. Generally a couple will face a combination of marriage penalty and status quo provisions, but rarely a bonus provision - except under a new temporary OBBBA deduction but likely less than 15% of workers qualify for it (see below). In my examples, I'm assuming the individuals have identical tax situations and consider what happens if they marry. Thus, I'm looking at marriage penalty and bonus built into the tax law rather than built into facts, such as where a low-income individual marries a higher income individuals causing the higher income individual to drop to a lower tax bracket.

Examples of marriage penalty rules including two OBBBA items:

• Where the top 37% income tax bracket starts. At the brackets below this, the MFJ amounts are double the single rates. But at 37% - a rate that applies to less than 1% of individuals, the 37% rate starts at taxable income of $751,601 for MFJ and $626,351.
• The net investment income tax (NIIT) threshold for married is $250,000 and $200,000 for single.
• The maximum mortgage amount for an interest deduction is $750,000 if MFJ or single ($375,000 if MFS).
• The state and local income tax (SALT) cap which for 2018 through 2024 was $10,000 for both MFJ and single ($5,000 for MFS). This penalty remains after OBBBA but at a higher cap of $40,000 for 2025, subject to a phasedown starting at modified AGI of $500,001.
• OBBBA tip income deduction is $25,000 max whether married or single (generally $0 if MFS).
• OBBBA car loan interest deduction is $10,000 whether married or single (however most people won't have even close to $10,000 of interest expense which equates to a loan of about $160,000).

Examples of provisions with no change for marital status (including one OBBBA item):

• Individual tax rates and brackets at the 10, 12, 22, 24, 32 and 35% levels.
• The standard deduction for MFJ is double the single deduction.
• The gain exclusion for selling your principal residence is $250,000 if single and $500,000 if MFJ.
• OBBBA senior deduction is $6,000 per eligible senior (but $0 if MFS).

Examples of provisions with a bonus (I'm just aware of one and it is from OBBBA):

• OBBBA overtime income deduction - $12,500 if single, $25,000 if MFJ (generally $0 if MFS). This new deduction (Section 225) is not $12,500 per spouse. So, assuming that the married couple is below the phaseout level, if one spouse has overtime of $25,000 and the other has none, they get a $25,000 overtime income deduction. If that worker with the $25,000 overtime was instead single, they would only get a deduction of $12,500.

I can't think of other marriage bonus situations in the tax law.  If you know of others, please post them in the comments - thank you!

So, why was the OBBBA deduction for overtime income written differently for married couples than the tip income deduction? Drafting error? Purposeful?

What do you think?  Also see my chart below for a summary of four new OBBBA rules and relevance of marital status.