let’s talk about taxes…

Happy Sunday!

Before I get into the fun stuff I have an important announcement to make – we found our new Corina!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago we were in the market for a new office manager – our beloved office manager Corina is moving out of the state for family reasons – and we found someone!

Carrie has been with the team for about a week, is learning the ropes, and is going to be amazing.

Welcome Carrie!

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff – taxes.

In case you didn’t know, the tax deadline is coming up quickly – 9 days!

I thought I’d give you a few quick and dirty tax tips to hopefully ease your pain and/or save some money.

First, if you don’t have your taxes ready by April 15, that’s okay – you can extend for 6 months by filing a simple form.

If you don’t file or extend you start to rack up some pretty big penalties, so do one or the other.

And, bonus tip – extending DOES NOT increase your likelihood of an audit. It actually decreases it (which I’ll talk about some other time).

Second, if you don’t have the money to pay on April 15, don’t panic.

File or extend, pay what you can, and then pay the rest as soon as you can.

Are there penalties? Yes, but they are TINY.

Third, a friendly reminder about gift taxes (our real area of expertise).

You can give up to $19k per person this year without having to file any paperwork (or pay any tax – though you’d have to give over $13.99M to actually owe any tax).

Also, remember, this is a federal limit.

Washington state has no such limit – you can give as much as you want without having to file any paperwork with WA state or pay any tax (there is NO gift tax in WA state).

Fourth, and finally, a friendly reminder that the time to prepare for saving on your 2025 taxes is NOT April 2026 – it’s now.

Find a pro that can help you, get curious about tax strategy, and implement one or two easy strategies to save you money.

Hope this helps!

Have a great week!
Cheers,

Christopher Small
Founder/CEO
CMS Law Firm LLC

PS – we love referrals! If you know someone that could use our help, please let them know about us!