Our Financial Blog
Can’t Pay Your Taxes? Here Are Some Options
About 3 out of 4 American taxpayers receive a refund each year when they file their income tax returns, but there are those who for one reason or another end up owing. Of those who owe Uncle Sam many don’t have the means to pay what they owe by the return due date...
False Employee Retention Credit Claims Can Mean Big Problems Later
If you are a business person relaxing at home after a long day’s work, watching TV and a commercial comes on claiming you can get a tax refund of thousands of dollars by filing for the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), it gets your attention, right? What those ads fail...
Taxpayers should know that an extension to file is not an extension to pay taxes
Taxpayers who aren’t able to file by the April 18, 2023, deadline can request an extension before that deadline, but they should know that an extension to file is not an extension to pay taxes. If they owe taxes, they should pay them before the due date to avoid...
Don’t Ignore Household Employee Payroll Tax Rules
If you hire a domestic worker to provide services in or around your home, you probably have a tax liability that you don’t know about – or one that you do know about but are ignoring. Either situation can come back to bite you. When the worker is your employee, your...
Why Quality Bookkeeping Matters
If you had to make a list of all the things that most business owners hate, taking care of accounting and other financial matters is probably right at the top. Yet at the same time, a lot of those same business owners are struggling. Maybe they had a financial goal...
How Employee Stock Options Are Taxed
Many companies, as an incentive to employees to help grow the companies’ market value, will offer stock options to key employees. The options give the employee the right to buy up to a specified number of shares of the company’s stock at a future date at a specific...
Watch out for scammers using email and text messages to try tricking people during tax season
With the filing deadline quickly approaching, the Internal Revenue Service urged everyone to remain vigilant against email and text scams aimed at tricking taxpayers about refunds or tax issues. The IRS again includes a warning about phishing and smishing...
Haven’t Filed Tax Returns for Multiple Years? Here’s What You Need to Do Next
You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who actually enjoys the process of filing taxes. Having said that, it's absolutely something that you're supposed to do like clockwork every single year. Of course, there are a myriad of different reasons why you may have fallen...
Best Practices to Help Guarantee Success for Your Gig Enterprise
According to one recent study, workers who make up the "gig economy" contributed roughly 5.7% to the gross domestic product of the United States in 2021 alone. If you needed a single statistic to help underline what a significant shift this has become in the way that...
Are You an S Corporation Stockholder? Are You Taking Reasonable Compensation in the Form of Wages?
S corporation compensation requirements are often misunderstood and abused by owner-shareholders. An S corporation is a type of business structure in which the business does not pay income tax at the corporate level and instead distributes (passes through) the income,...
Professional Responsibility and the Employee Retention Credit
Since the Fall of 2022, the IRS has issued several warnings to employers to beware of third parties promoting improper Employee Retention Credit (ERC) claims. See IRS IR-2023-40 (Mar. 7, 2023); IRS IR-2022-183 (Oct. 19, 2022); COVID Tax Tip 2022-170 (Nov. 7, 2022)....
What to do when a W-2 or Form 1099 is missing or incorrect
It’s important for taxpayers to have all their documents and information so they can file an accurate and complete tax return. This may mean waiting to file until they receive all their documentation – and it can also mean following up on missing or incorrect...
Understanding business travel deductions
Whether someone travels for work once a year or once a month, figuring out travel expense tax write-offs might seem confusing. The IRS has information to help all business travelers properly claim these valuable deductions. Here are some tax details all business...
Planning On Buying a New Electric Vehicle and Claiming a Tax Credit? Better Read This First
Although the credit for purchasing a new electric vehicle can still be as much as $7,500, Congress has added some new stringent qualifications as to which vehicles qualify, and for the first time Congress has limited who qualifies for the credit by barring the credit...
Who Claims the Children’s Tax Benefits You or Your Ex-Spouse?
If you are a divorced or separated parent, a commonly encountered but often misunderstood issue is who claims the child or children for tax purposes. This is sometimes a hotly disputed issue between parents; however, tax law includes some very specific but complicated...
Taxpayers should avoid these common mistakes when they file their tax return
Most of the common errors taxpayers make on their tax returns are easily avoidable. By carefully reviewing their return, taxpayers can save time and effort by not having to correct it later. Filing electronically also helps prevent mistakes. Tax software does the...
Want to Relieve Stress in 2023? Start Building Your Emergency Fund
Maybe you're one of the people who went through mass layoffs in virtually all industries in 2022. Maybe you've made a New Year's resolution to become more financially stable in 2023. You might even be worried that this is the year that the economy will truly enter...
Tax Time Guide: Things to consider when filing a 2022 tax return
With the 2023 tax filing season in full swing, the Internal Revenue Service reminds taxpayers to gather their necessary information and visit IRS.gov for updated resources and tools to help with their 2022 tax return. This news release is part of a series called the...
IRS and Treasury issue final regulations on e-file for businesses
WASHINGTON — The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service issued final regulations amending the rules for filing returns and other documents electronically (e-file). These regulations will require certain filers to e-file beginning in 2024. T.D....
Form W-4: this IRS online tool simplifies estimating 2024 tax withholding
A few minutes spent reviewing income tax withholding early in the year helps set a taxpayer up for success all year long. The Tax Withholding Estimator on IRS.gov makes it easy to figure out how much to withhold. This online tool helps employees withhold the correct...