Consider if a retirement plan is right for your business. One fundamental consideration for every business is determining whether to offer a retirement plan for employees, and that decision is quickly followed by a follow-up: What type of retirement plan should be offered? This article will provide a broad overview of retirement plans and hopefully can be used as a basis for further discussion. First, a quick discussion of why we consider this to be a fundamental consideration. There are several reasons, and we see these as the critical ones: Attracting and retaining employees – particularl ..read more

Not much is of more importance than cash flow. As advisors to businesses of all sizes, from basement tech start-ups to large manufacturing operations and including new businesses and mature generational businesses, our firm has seen time and again how businesses fail because they stopped managing cash flow.  An article in the Wall Street Journal recently discussed how a major retailer, Saks, has failed to manage their payments to vendors.  After courting a number of boutique small business to supply Saks with unique products, the retail giant has failed to make timely payments for t ..read more

A better-funded IRS will target certain individuals and businesses. On July 11, 2024, the Internal Revenue Service announced that they surpassed the $1 billion threshold in collecting past-due taxes from uber-wealthy taxpayers.  The collection efforts focus on taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.  The IRS is pushing compliance efforts under the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided funding for several new initiatives.  “Years of funding declines meant the IRS couldn’t get to money that we knew was owed, but we simply di ..read more

The IRS recently released a set of Frequently Asked Questions to help taxpayers understand the Clean Vehicle Energy tax credits that are available for certain vehicles. The IRS recently released a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for buyers of vehicles that might qualify for clean vehicle energy credits.  These updates for for new, previously owned, and qualified commercial vehicles, and are contained in Fact Sheet 2024-26 (FS-2024-26), issued on July 26, 2024.  These FAQs supercede earlier FAQs that were posted by the IRS.  These FAQ revisions include the following to ..read more

Understanding the rules of estimated taxes for individuals can save unnecessary penalties. Individual taxpayers in certain situations are required to make estimated tax payments in order to minimize or eliminate the exposure to the penalty for underpayment of estimated tax. Individuals must pay 25% of a “required annual payment” by Apr. 15, June 15, Sept. 15, and Jan. 15, to avoid an underpayment penalty. When that date falls on a weekend or holiday, the payment is due on the next business day. The required annual payment for most individuals is the lower of 90% of the tax shown on the curr ..read more

Life insurance is a significant asset in many estates.  Whether it is included for estate tax purposes or not is the issue. Many people have life insurance, maybe originally it was taken out to protect a spouse or children in the event of an untimely death, or maybe it was taken out as a quasi-investment.  In many cases, the policies are simply allowed to lapse when the policy holder retires, to avoid making any more principal payments.  In other cases, the insurance stays in force and must be a consideration at the time of death as to whether or not it is part of the estate ..read more

Read on for a quick look at what a Health Savings Account can do. Given the ever-escalating cost of providing employee health care benefits, there might be a more cost-effective method of providing these benefits; namely, a health savings account (HSA). For eligible individuals, HSAs offer a tax-favorable way to set aside funds (or have their employer do so) to meet future medical needs. Here are the key tax-related elements: contributions you make to an HSA are deductible, within limits, contributions your employer makes aren't taxed to you, earnings on the funds within the HSA are not taxe ..read more

The rules get more complex when foreign travel is involved.  Read on for more information. Travel outside of the United States brings about some different tax considerations.  The general rule is that if the trip is entirely for business purposes, you can deduct all the travel costs, plus meals (at 50%), lodging, and some incidental costs such as for laundry and dry cleaning. If the trip is primarily personal, none of the costs of travel to and from the destination are deductible, even if some time is spent on business. Lodging, meals, etc. would be deductible for the business days ..read more

When travel with a spouse is deductible There are many reasons why it might be ideal to take a spouse on a business trip, and some of the those reasons are for personal enjoyment while at other times the presence of the spouse is required for business purposes.  As one might guess, the purpose for having the spouse accompany on a trip will determine whether or not those expenses are deductible for federal income tax purposes.  The rules for deducting a spouse's travel costs are very restrictive. First of all, a spouse must be an employee of the business. The travel costs of a spous ..read more

With year-end approaching, it is time to start thinking about moves that may help lower your tax bill for this year and next. This year’s planning is more challenging than usual due to changes made by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the SECURE 2.0 Act. With year-end approaching, it is time to start thinking about moves that may help lower your tax bill for this year and next. This year’s planning is more challenging than usual due to changes made by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the SECURE 2.0 Act. Whether or not tax increases become effective next year, the standard year ..read more