Tax Planning & its Benefits Workshop at JVB Preksha Meditation Center
By Seema Jain
HOUSTON: As part of community outreach, JVB Houston Center organized its first workshop of I-Choose for year 2016, a program for young professionals on Tax Planning & Its Benefits. The event was held on Sunday, Feb. 7, from 1PM – 2:30 PM inside JVB’s Pyramid Hall and was conducted by distinguished speaker Mallikarjun B. Shintri, a practicing CPA with over 30 plus years of experience and was aided by Nishant Jain, an Avid Accountant and active member of JVB Center with over 15 plusyears of experience. The seminar was targeted for professionals of all ages. 40 plus people attended this highly informative & interactive workshop. The objective of this workshop was to give a general information on how to report personal tax return forms such as 1040, 1099 as well as Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts to cope up with challenges of this busy tax season.
The event Coordinator, Sudhir Daga welcomed the community members and invited JVB Board of Director, Alok Jain to be the Emcee of the afternoon. He opened up the session with sharing the vision of I-Choose program, its need in today’s world. He emphasized that Increasing numbers of young professionals are entering the sandwich generation, trying to maintain a balance between their personal & professional lives. I-Choose program fills the gap with an aim to guide, educate, and help young people to address these challenges by providing a venue to talk to the “experts “and networking with each other so that they can succeed in their professional, social, family, and personal lives.
He invited Shintri to share his wisdom on the current Topic of the session. Shintri gave the detailed explanation of how to fill IRS form 1040 to report personal taxes. What kind of Income can be taken into account for example, Salary & Wages, Interest & Dividend income, Business & Farm income, Rental & Royalties, Unemployment Compensation etc. What kind of deductions for e.g. standard or itemized deductions and what kind of exemptions can further be claimed to arrive at taxable income. He also talked about AMT form 6251, Various Tax Credits such as foreign Tax Credit form 1116, Child Tax Credit Form 8812 , Education Credit, Retirement Saving Contribution Credit Form 8880 & Residential Credit Form 5695.
During Q & A Round, He along with Nishant Jain answered various Foreign Bank & Financial Account Reporting queries from all corners. Jain shared his insight about what constitutes interest income from foreign accounts, what are the limits of Foreign Capital Gains & Losses, Gift Income, Active as well as Passive Income.
The entire presentation was extremely informational, educational and audience was very engaged and interested throughout. After his presentation, Shintri & Jain stayed past their time to discuss and answer specific questions from audience and even did a one- on- one consulting with individuals.
In closing, Alok Jain did the vote of thanks and presented Shintri a small gift as a token of appreciation. He also highlighted that so far the theme for I-Choose sessions at JVB Center been bucketed under various broad categories such as : Work and Life Balance, Networking Skills, How to develop soft skills, Wealth Management etc. and asked for audience input for picking up the next topic of the session which will be happening on April 3, from 1:00Pm – 2:30 Pm at the same location.
The JVB Preksha Meditation Center conducts regular Preksha Meditation sessions which is the practice of purifying our emotions, consciousness and realizing our own self. Mediation augurs attitudinal change, behavioral modification and integrated development of one’s personality. Also at JVB’s Gyanshala, We value our intellectual capital, and nurture it through a perfect blend, of the traditional as well as contemporary ways and means, for the comprehensive development, of the kids personality.
For more information please visit www.jvbhouston.org or call us at 281.596.9642.