Category: Blog

Have you procrastinated about setting up a tax-advantaged retirement plan for your small business? If the answer is yes, you are not alone. Still, this is not a good situation. You are paying income taxes that could easily be avoided. So consider setting up a plan to position yourself for future tax savings. For owners of profitable one-person business operations, a relatively new retirement plan alternative is the solo 401(k). The main solo 401(k) advantage is potentially much larger...

Now that we’re really “into” 2020 and those of us who are digging into our New Year’s Resolutions are seeing progress while other folks may have … “misplaced” them, I wanted to pass along an interesting observation a new client made recently. Just to set the record straight, this gentleman is not filthy rich, but as a new client, he and I had a very detailed conversation about how he invests, his income and financial goals, and his expectations for growth in 2020. Interestingly enough,...

One of the biggest challenges tax professionals and accountants face is assisting our clients in gathering all the information and documents they’ll need to be able to calculate their tax bills.  This time of year, of course, is when 90% of those tax documents are sent out and EVERY year, the phone here in the office rings nearly off the hook with clients wondering who to call and where to turn to find either a new copy of a lost document or to track down a document that was never sent.  There...

The Treasury and the IRS redesigned the W-4 withholding form in the wake of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which eliminated the traditional exemptions for dependents and the taxpayers themselves along with a host of deductions. Many taxpayers discovered this year as a result of the changes that they unexpectedly ended up owing taxes because they didn’t have enough money withheld from their paychecks last year. The IRS urged taxpayers to do a “paycheck checkup” last year using an online withholding...

Talk to a business owner who has been in business for a while and he or she will tell you to make sure that you put a retirement plan in place. When you are starting out and have a modest income, the Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE) IRA can be the perfect plan. You must have your SIMPLE IRA set up by October 1, 2020, to permit a deductible contribution for your 2020 tax year. If you are going to establish a SIMPLE IRA this year, do it now. October 1 will be here before...

With the start of a new tax year, you’re probably looking for new tax savings opportunities. As you probably know, establishing a home office for your Schedule C or corporate business creates valuable tax deductions. But it’s not available only for your proprietorship, partnership, or corporate business. If you have rental properties, you can establish a home office to manage your rental properties and deduct the cost on your Schedule E. Rentals as a Business The first hurdle is that...

Inevitably, one of the most common questions we get here when it comes to employee benefits for our clients is those pertaining to healthcare.  It’s no secret that healthcare costs, no matter who is in office, continue to rise and in the last few years, we’ve seen several alternate methods devised to allow taxpayers to help pay for their healthcare.  In general, the two most common are Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs).  But what are they,...

Good Morning Now that we’re in the second week of 2020, I really wanted to check in to discuss those resolutions you made.  We ALL know that most of us fall back on the old “New Year, New Me” stuff, but aside from losing weight, eating better, and making more money, what actionable resolutions did you make? Did you use a specific dollar amount when you said you wanted to make more money? Did you write down how much “more time” you were going to spend with your family? Heck,...

Changes included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) force you and other small-business owners to reconsider whether a new venture should be conducted as a pass-through entity or as a C corporation. Pass-through entities include partnerships and multi-member LLCs that are treated as partnerships for tax purposes. So, what should you think about the advisability of operating a business as an LLC or a partnership in the post-TCJA world? Good question. Multi-Member LLC Option Still Looks...

As has become usual practice, Congress passed some meaningful tax legislation as it recessed for the holidays. In one of the new meaningful laws, enacted on December 20, you will find the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (SECURE Act). The SECURE Act made many changes to how you save money for your retirement, how you use your money in retirement, and how you can better use your Section 529 plans. Whether you are age 35 or age 75, these changes affect...