Handler says that if you've made mistakes in earlier tax returns, you should correct them this year, before tax rates go up. "This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix things up, to correct mistakes in earlier returns," he says. "Who you think will win [the election] will have a big impact on your planning."
As for the impending sunset of tax rates, Handler believes something needs to be done immediately and that Congress cannot wait until after January 1, 2013. "Every day beyond that date kills business expansion, kills the market." The impact on jobs and the economy would be such that the U.S. would sink back into recession, he says. "You will have people renouncing citizenship. The number of renunciations under Obama's administration has more than quadrupled, and Obama has made the recession deeper and longer than necessary."
Of course, not every financial expert agrees. Levin says the opposite: "If Romney wins, I'm strapping my dog on the top of my car and driving to Canada."
Mary Rowland can be reached at [email protected]. She has been a business and personal finance journalist for 30 years and has written two books for financial advisors: Best Practices and In Search of the Perfect Model.