Business owners have lots of questions when it comes to deciding whether to expense costs or capitalize fixed assets, such as: Can I expense a laptop computer that I purchased for $699 in the current year? What qualifies as standby emergency spare parts, and can I capitalize them for tax purposes? Can I use the [...]
Although tax legislation signed into law this past January made a wide variety of tax breaks permanent, it extended several valuable breaks for businesses only through Dec. 31, 2013. It’s possible that some, or even all, of them could be extended again. But with the battle in Washington over tax reform, it’s difficult to predict [...]
If you withhold retainage (known as a portion of a contract's final payment withheld by a principal — client or owner — until the project is complete in all respects), from subcontractors, you may be able to defer some of your taxable income to future years. This opportunity stems from the way retainage payable is [...]
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued a draft on August 21, 2013 proposing an alternative within U.S. GAAP that would address a common source of frustration for private companies and their financial statement preparers. The FASB exposure draft would exempt many private companies from the requirement to apply variable-interest entity (“VIE”) consolidation guidance to [...]
Most S Corp. owners realize there are some challenges that must be considered in order to maintain their S-election. I have focused on corporations that have been treated as S corporations effectively since formation in this article. The S Corporation election can be inadvertently terminated in several ways. But with some preplanning and some prompt action [...]
If you are planning to sell shares of stock, mutual funds or other investments, familiarize yourself with the cost basis rules before you call your broker. And be sure you understand the different accounting methods available for determining which shares you sell. The method you choose can have a big impact on your tax bill.
One of the biggest concerns for family business owners is succession planning — transferring ownership and control of the company to the next generation. In many cases, the best time tax-wise to start transferring ownership is long before the owner is ready to give up control of the business. A family limited partnership, or FLP, [...]
S corporations have certain tax advantages that you might consider for your small business in 2013 – before it’s too late. An S corporation is a regular corporation that has opted to have all income or loss passed down to the personal tax returns of its shareholders rather than taxed at the corporate level. This [...]
The IRS recently published some information about the most common abusive tax schemes they have come across. Tax evasion using foreign jurisdictions is accomplished using many different methods. The following schemes are not all-inclusive, but are a sample of abusive tax schemes. Abusive Foreign Trust Schemes: The foreign trust schemes usually start off as a [...]
