By: Kim Smith, CPA, Tax Shareholder Kim is a shareholder, a member of the JMF Tax Department and in charge of the JMF State and Local Tax (SALT) group. With over 20 years of experience, she assists clients with corporate, partnership, and individual income tax reporting as well as complex multi-state income and sales tax [...]
Paying income tax is bad enough, but insult is added to injury if you are assessed any tax penalties. There are numerous no-nos for individuals and small-business owners to avoid, but here are five of the major offenses in the tax code. 1. Payroll taxes: If a business willfully fails to deposit payroll taxes, the “responsible [...]
As evidenced by the list of the “Dirty Dozen” tax scams recently released by the IRS, the tax swindlers are getting smarter every year. Here is a summary of the 12 notorious scams to watch out for in 2016. 1. Identity theft: A crook can steal your Social Security number and use it to file [...]
A buy–sell agreement can be critical to a business owner intending to sell the business interest or needing to accommodate other changes within the organization. Typically, it can help ease a transition in leadership to the younger generation. Basic concept: The buy–sell agreement protects your family’s interests in the event you become disabled or die [...]
If you are an employer, you've probably heard that there are new laws about who qualifies for overtime pay. It's been about two years in the making. The most important items to understand are: The 2016 salary threshold is $913 per week or $47,476 annually for a full-year worker. That's adjusted down slightly from earlier reports. [...]
If you have been reading the tax press or even this blog, you will know plenty about the problems taxpayers are having with phone and email scams posing as the IRS. Well, now the IRS has announced that they will stop initiating field audits by telephone. So, the examiner will send a letter and then [...]
By: Betsy Jarnigan, CPA Tax Supervisor Betsy is a member of the JMF Tax Department and an integral part of the JMF State and Local Tax (SALT) group. She is also a recipient of the ASCPA Outstanding Young CPA Award. About a year ago, we blogged (ADOR considering changes to existing rules for sales tax on photography) [...]
Contact the decedent’s attorney to determine the date of the last executed Last Will and Testament. Many times the attorney has the document in safe keeping or it is in the decedent’s safe deposit box. The Last Will and Testament of the decedent will name the personal representative of the estate. Make an appointment with [...]
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in The Terminator, the research credit is back. This valuable tax break, which had officially expired and been restored more than a dozen times in the past, was extended again by the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act, retroactive to the beginning of 2015. What’s more, the credit has been [...]
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 ended two popular Social Security retirement benefit claiming strategies, “File-and-Suspend” and “Restricted Application.” Many married couples use the file-and-suspend strategy by having the higher wage earner file for benefits and then immediately suspend them so that the lower earning spouse can claim spousal benefits while letting their own Social [...]