As a small business owner, hiring your children to work for your business may save you money when filing taxes. It might sound too good to be true, but if you handle the situation properly and file the right paperwork, you may be able to write off nearly half of their wages on your business’s taxes. [...]
Setting up payroll for your small business is at once a simple and increasingly complex process. To gain a basic understanding, let’s start with the simple part. If you’re starting up a business, you have to pay your employees, and obviously they will expect their paychecks to be accurate and on time. You will have [...]
First, there’s the school wrapping paper sale. Then Girl Scout cookie sales. Then the big spring gala. They are all worthy causes, of course, but how do you budget for seemingly constant school fundraisers, especially if you have multiple kids in different schools? As shrinking state and federal budgets take their toll on schools, parents [...]
Sometimes we find ourselves with a little extra cash through a tax refund, a bonus at work, or some other unexpected windfall. What are you going to do with all of that money burning a hole in your pocket? Treating yourself is sometimes nice, but there are often smarter ideas for money management. Those who [...]
You want to buy a foreclosure? Where have you been for the past five years? Foreclosures are definitely on the decline as fewer homeowners are defaulting on their mortgages. The backlogs of foreclosures that built up during the Robogate mess are largely depleted, and more and more homeowners who find themselves in financial trouble are [...]
During the housing boom, many homeowners found themselves living beyond their means as easy money skewed expectations of what they could afford. Today, being honest with the realities of the real estate market and mortgage landscape can feel like taking a step backward. So how can homeowners and renters stay within their means and aspire [...]
The other day, Bill Porter of Pride Tax Preparation told me that he was able to electronically file a tax return with attachments. Hip hip hooray! Tax pros have been waiting for this development for a long time. What does this mean for you? It means that you, too, may now e-file with attachments—if your [...]
I started my tax career in a national CPA firm a long time ago. What shocked me about filing taxes with this particular firm was that it was charging $250 to prepare a simple tax return. What’s the big deal? Back then, $250 got you a nice two-bedroom apartment. Today, that same apartment would run [...]
You think you made a mistake? Let me tell you about the time I made a $90,000 error. It was very embarrassing. This $90,000 was the very first entry I had made into the tax software for the client. When the return was finalized after two months of work, the $90,000 had disappeared. It turned [...]
Right around this time of year, the tax dance heats up and the pace gets frantic. It’s the time when tax professionals have to try to keep up with the frenetic twists and turns of emerging tax laws, deadlines, IRS announcements, and warnings. But don’t finalize your tax return just because the April 15 tax-filing [...]
