Practice Builder

Dentistry. Construction. Real estate. Working with clients in these industry verticals can provide your firm with incremental growth. While these niches are certainly solid areas to explore as you look toward increasing your firm’s profitab... Gaynor Meilke

Expert Notes

There are some best practices that should be followed to ensure a nonprofit organization’s accounting needs are not only met, but maximized. Despite their diligence, nonprofit organizations are often the victims of accounting mistakes or fraud. By implementing a few best practic... Jon Osterburg, Jitasa

Feature Article

The spread of COVID-19 is impacting businesses around the world. As entities consider the effects of COVID-19 on their global operations, careful consideration is needed in understanding the accounting implications of these developments. The many ramifications of the curr... April D. Little, Ciro Buttacavoli, and Adam Lehmann

Your Questions Answered

1. Question: My clients, husband and wife, called to say that in 2019 they contracted with a local cooperative to facilitate the sale of grain from their farming operation. The business is operated as an LLC and taxed as a partnership with the clients as the sole partners. For tax...

Practice Builder

Making the change to work from a home office presents unique challenges for enrolled agents (EAs) and other tax professionals. However, adopting a few key best practices and utilizing the right tools can help you boost productivity, maintain work-life balance, and ensure ... David McKeegan, EA

Payroll Corner

Congress enacted two laws — the Families First Coronavirus Response Acti (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Actii (CARES Act) — in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which devastated the country late last winter. Both law... Alice Gilman, Esq.

Your Questions Answered

1. QUESTION: My client is employed and has a side business that requires him to go to multiple locations. He regularly drives directly from delivering products to one of his business clients to his place of employment or from his employer to a meeting relating to his business. Ho... Marie Condley, EA

Payroll Corner

Reimbursing Employees’ Business Expenses after the TCJA The Internal Revenue Code does not require employers to reimburse employees’ out-of-pocket business expenses. Employees were not completely out-of-pocket if their employers chose not to reimburse those costs. The... Alice Gilman

Your Questions Answered

1. QUESTION: Our client of several years called to tell us she has lived in Washington, DC, for nearly all of 2019. She took a staff position with a Representative from her home state. Does she have to file a DC tax return, or file only in her home state, or does she file a retur... Jackie Perlman, CPA

Payroll Corner

Your payroll operations have been humming along for quite some time. Forever, maybe. All of that is about to change. The IRS is resolved to shake up all things payroll, beginning next year. The changes are wide-ranging and profound. Here is what we know now, based on draft forms ... Alice Gilman, Esq

Your Questions Answered

1. QUESTION: My client sustained considerable damage to his home in Dayton, Ohio, following the storms, flooding, etc., in his area this past June. It may take him some time to get appraisals, resolve his insurance claim, etc. At this point, he does not know the size of the loss ... Jackie Perlman

Your Questions Answered

1. Enrolling in Medicare and Retroactive Impact on Health Savings Accounts I have a client, age 68, who retired and enrolled in regular Medicare in October. She was covered under her employer’s high deductible health plan (HDHP) from January through September, and continued to co... Gil Charney, CPA/PFS, CFP, CGMA, CMA, MBA

Expert Notes

As an enrolled agent of some years, I began practicing when all you needed was your certification, a calculator, green columnar paper, blank tax forms – and clients. But the practice of tax professionals has altered so dramatically that we simply cannot ... Vicki Ferrantello, EA, NTPI Fellow®

Payroll Corner

Employees must receive Forms W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, by January 31. More than likely, they glace at their forms and then drop everything off with their tax professional. It is an annual ritual everyone understands. But that is assuming that all the information reported on t... Alice Gilman, Esq.

Your Questions Answered

1. When Can You Deduct the Interest on a Home Equity Loan? My clients called to say they are considering buying a small lake home that they will use for long weekends, vacations, etc., and possibly for retirement in the future. To buy it, they are thinking of taking out a home equity loan on their primary residence. They did not give any particular reason other than to say “that will just be easier for us than getting a mortgage on ... Jackie Perlman, CPA

Your Questions Answered

1. Qualified Business Income and the Statutory Employee Question: I have a few clients whose Form W-2, box 13 shows them as statutory employees. Assuming they are properly classified, would they qualify for the qualified business income (QBI) deduction in §199A? An... Gil Charney, CPA

Expert Notes

Last August, Paul M. was convicted on five charges of tax fraud, and one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts. While these are criminal offenses, let’s look at the ethical behavior of his tax preparer. Cindy L., an employee of KWC, prepared Paul M.’s 2014 and 2015 ... Lonnie Gary, EA, USTCP

Expert Notes

After processing 2018 year-end payroll, employers may see the need to reevaluate processes, procedures, and tax configurations in the payroll system to ensure compliance amid the substantial changes created by the 2017 tax reform known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act... Joan Vines

Your Questions Answered

Question: Several of our clients are Canadian or Mexican citizens who live and work in the U.S. and file U.S. resident alien tax returns. Their families live in Canada or Mexico. In the past, they were able to claim exemptions for their dependents. What tax benefits will these clients qualify for, now tha... Jackie Perlman, CPA

Expert Notes

When the IRS added the de minimis safe harbor (DMSH) election to the repair and capitalization regulations, practitioners rejoiced. Use of this election allows our clients to immediately expense small asset purchases provided that the asset cost is $2,500 or... Thomas A. Gorczynski, EA, CTC, USTCP

Payroll Corner

The taxes that have been withheld from employees’ pay during the year, and the employer’s matching Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) contribution, have been reported to the IRS quarterly on Form 941. Everything, except the employer’s matching FICA contribution, mu... Alice Gilman, Esq.

Your Questions Answered

1. Reporting IRA Recharacterizations Question: We know that under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), IRA recharacterizations of Roth conversions are no longer permitted for any conversion that was done after December 31, 2017. However, how would we know from a Form 1099-R ... Gil Charney, CPA/PFS, CFP, CGMA, CMA, MBA

Feature Article

An executor administering an estate with undisclosed foreign accounts is exposed to substantial risks that may not be apparent. The following discussion is intended for executors and administrators who wish to understand and avoid those risks.1 A Typical Scenario A taxpayer dies. An executor is appointed and learns of foreign accounts: Tose foreign accounts hold investments. The ... Frank Agostino, Esq., Nicholas R. Karp, EA, USTCP

Feature Article

As a tax professional, what do you do when you encounter a client who has a problem or an issue which you have limited familiarity with or experience with? Do you prefer the client to another practitioner? Do you contact a colleague (or post a question in a forum) and hope that any advice that you receive will be sound? Or do you tell the client that you will do some additional research on the issue and get back to him? Your course of act... John G. (“Jack”) Wood, EA

Feature Article

Why would anyone subject themselves to reading the Internal Revenue Code? It’s not exactly a spellbinding novel, or even an interesting nonfiction work on your favorite topic, unless your favorite topic is tax law. When most people think of the Code, they think of it as being an impenetrable morass of legalese gobbledygook, more useful as a cure for insomnia than a practical resource for the tax professional. But being able to effecti... Carolyn Richardson, EA

Feature Article

Partnerships and entities taxed as a partnership, such as certain limited liability companies (LLCs), have become a popular entity choice for doing business over the past 50 years. This tax structure offers business owners significant benefits, including taxation at only the partner level. Another benefit that often goes unnoticed is that very few partnerships are audited by the IRS. Moreover, when the IRS engages in a partnership audit, t... Travis Greaves, JD, Josh Wu, JD