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James Royal, Ph.D. | Bankrate.com (TNS)

If you’re an investor, be sure to give special attention to the taxes you’ll have to pay on your investments. In many cases, you have ways to legally reduce, defer or even eliminate taxes on your investment gains and keep more of your profits. So it pays to know the smartest ways to minimize your taxes and keep more of your money working for you.

Here are some of the best ways to keep taxes low on your investment income.

How your investments are taxed

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) taxes your investment income, but it does so differently from how it taxes income from working wages. Those differences include not only the tax rates you pay but also when and how taxes are assessed on investment income. Broadly speaking, investments generate income in two ways and each is treated differently for tax purposes:

— Capital gains: Capital gains are an increase in the price of an asset, for example, if a stock or real estate property goes up in value. In general, the government taxes capital gains only when they’ve been realized (i.e., an asset has been sold for cash). read more

NEW YORK (AP) — JetBlue Airways warned that it may end its bid to acquire low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines as soon as this weekend after a federal judge blocked the deal, sending Spirit shares sharply lower Friday.

Spirit shot back that finds no reason to terminate the deal and will continue to meet its obligations, “and it expects JetBlue to do the same.”

A federal judge sided with the Justice Department and blocked JetBlue’s proposed $3.8 billion purchase of Spirit last week. The Justice Department sued to block the merger, saying it would drive up fares by eliminating Spirit, the nation’s biggest low-cost airline.

Both airlines have filed their intention to appeal with a higher court.

JetBlue said in a regulatory filing Friday it told Spirit that certain conditions of their deal might not be met by the deadline set in the airlines’ 2022 agreement. JetBlue said that could lead it to terminate the deal as early as Sunday.

Spirit responded hours later with its own filing that disputed JetBlue’s position. read more