Unlike employees, who have income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes withheld from their wages, self-employed individuals must prepay their taxes by making quarterly estimated tax payments. These are referred to as estimated tax payments because the self-employed individual must estimate his or her net earnings for the year and pay taxes on a quarterly basis [...]
Congress has approved the 21st Century Cures Act, which includes a provision allowing small employers to reimburse their employees for medical expenses under a health reimbursement arrangement without being liable for the draconian, $100 per day penalty for violating the Affordable Care Act’s rules. President Obama has indicated his approval of the bill. Background: Stand-alone [...]
The IRS, in an effort to combat rampant tax filing fraud, has introduced what they hope will be two new fraud-prevention measures for the upcoming filing season. The first will purposely delay until February 15 the issuance of refunds for tax returns where there is an earned income tax credit (EITC) and/or a refundable child [...]
When you were a kid, you imagined becoming an entrepreneur — a dream that turned into reality a few years ago when you started your first small business and began enjoying the freedom of being your own boss. But, since then, your profits haven’t grown at the rate you’d hoped they would. If you can [...]
2017 is just around the corner. Now’s the time to do your end-of-year QuickBooks tasks. Since early January of this year, you’ve been faithfully creating new records, entering transactions, and recording payments. You’ve run basic reports. You’ve done your collection duties. You may have paid employees and submitted payroll taxes. Now the end of the [...]
Whew! Elections are over. Now here is some of the fallout for employers: As you may already know Arizona voters passed Proposition 206 for an increase to minimum wage from $8.05 to $10 starting January 1st, 2017. Here are a few more details on the changes below. Increase the minimum wage to $10 in 2017, [...]
When an individual itemizes deductions, one of those deductions is the cost of medical and dental expenses, including health insurance premiums. However, the medical expense deduction has been historically limited to the amount that exceeds 7.5% of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI). With passage of the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, [...]
A frequent question that arises is: Can I deduct the cost of my work clothing on my tax return? The answer to that question is “maybe.” The IRS provides the following guidelines for when expenses for work clothes are deductible: 1) They are worn as a condition of employment, AND 2) The clothing is not [...]
If you are a divorced or separated parent with children, 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 rules about who profits from the child-related tax benefits. At issue [...]
Where did your Federal income tax dollars go in 2015? The National Priorities Project recently broke down the United States $4.2 trillion dollar Federal budget detailing where your tax dollars were allocated. The majority of your Federal income tax dollars go to health programs, defense and interest on the national debt. In 2015, the average [...]