Ohio Governor John Kasich and the Ohio General Assembly recently approved a new two-year state budget that includes some significant state tax law changes. The first change became effective September 1, 2013. The following are the highlights of the new tax laws:

Earlier this year, the maximum bankruptcy exemption amount for IRAs increased from $1,171,650 to $1,245,475. This exemption amount is subject to cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs). Since most Americans don’t have IRA balances anywhere near $1 million, the IRAs of almost everyone will be fully protected from their creditors if they declare bankruptcy.

If you need to file a Form 1065 (partnership return), Form 1120S (S corporation return) or Form 1041 (fiduciary return) the deadline to file your 2012 return is September 16, 2013. This assumes you had filed for an extension prior to April 15, 2013.

As tax rates increase, the Roth individual retirement account keeps looking better and better. The key feature of a Roth IRA is that all money invested into one of these accounts grows tax-free and qualified distributions are also tax-free! This Tax Tip will look at eight ways to maximize the flexibility of Roth IRA accounts.

From time to time we post a Tax Tip to keep you updated on the growing problem of identity thefts and refund fraud. The following is a recent article written by Michael Bender and published by Bloomberg:

State lawmakers can certainly think of some strange tax laws. The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters recently produced its annual list of "quirky" sales and use tax laws from the past year: