At the beginning of this year, President Obama signed into law the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. Among other things, it increases the top marginal tax rates for ordinary income, capital gains, and dividends. In the following video, Fool contributor John Maxfield shares two simple and legal ways that taxpayers can go about reducing their taxable income in order to (hopefully) steer clear from these new rates. He also discusses how the legislation could have an unintended consequence on shares of IBM (IBM -1.04%) and Caterpillar (CAT 0.59%), two of the sturdiest stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.