Keeping up with tax changes: How to find the latest tax information so you can plan accordingly

NEW YORK -- It's the end of November. That means the year will end before you know it, and you have just four weeks or so to make moves for the 2007 tax year.

OK, fine. Check your income and expenses, especially if you're self-employed or own a business. Plan your capital gains -- especially if you have big mutual fund capital gain distributions to deal with. Try to figure out if you'll get snagged by the alternative minimum tax.

Check out other changes in tax rates, exemptions, credits, cutbacks, new rules for retirement plans, health savings accounts etc.

But where can you get a summary of what's new on the tax front? By the time IRS forms arrive, usually not long after New Year's Day, it's too late to do any planning. Ditto for all those phone-book-size tax publications you find in the bookstores.

And this year -- wow. We're dealing with the effects of three big tax-law changes in the last year: the Tax Relief and Health Care Act and the Pension Protection Act of 2006, and the Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act passed in May.

And now Congress is taking its time on at least one biggie -- the extension of the higher AMT exemption which expired last year. A version passed the House but isn't expected to clear the Senate, so we're going down to the wire to get the change published and implemented on forms -- not to mention tax software.

So how do you keep up with the latest changes? How can you manage them instead of letting them manage you?

I have a few 15-minute solutions.

But first, in case you thought you knew the answer, the following three sources don't work:

• IRS Web site. For most things, I find the IRS site helpful -- good plain English explanations of most tax features, effective search and links to forms and other resources. But for tax planning? Surprisingly, the IRS doesn't publish much about changes or about the upcoming year until everything is final and they can publish their forms.
• Tax-planning software sites. I expected TurboTax, H&R Block, and other tool providers to give summaries on their Web sites. I was wrong.
• Google "Federal income tax planning 2007." You might get lucky and hit something, but I got a lot of material for the 2007 tax season -- covering taxes for 2006. Modifying the search didn't help much.

So I dug some more, and here's what I'd watch as the tax year winds down:

• New tax tables. They won't get you through the nuances of the new laws, but you can get familiar with the new tax brackets, exemptions, standard deductions, credits and cutbacks. There are several sources, one of the most concise I found comes from the Financial Planning Association. Check out the site.
• Wall Street Journal Tax Report. Every Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal publishes a half-page summary of the latest tax changes and interpretations, found in the Personal Finance section.
• Private CPA and financial services reports. A few CPA and financial firms do reports for their clients and make them available for PR purposes. These reports are well written and -- check the date -- especially useful if done recently. Look for reports from Weaver & Tidwell, New York Life and others. An especially good one comes from CPA firm RSM McGladrey, which just released its 2007 report. Read the report.

It's worth spending a few minutes each week checking all of these resources. When it comes to taxes, I don't like to fly blind.