Business Strategies Archives - Page 11 of 22 - Think Outside the Tax Box

Business Strategies

By Marie Torossian, CPA

Facebook Advertising for Accountants: Targeting Your Ideal Clients and Driving Conversions

As our digital existence expands, accountants must leverage every tool to reach potential clients and grow our practice. Facebook advertising is a robust platform that offers precise targeting options, retargeting capabilities, and various ad formats to drive conversions. In this article, I will provide a comprehensive overview of how accountants can use Facebook advertising effectively, covering ad creative, audience targeting, and budget optimization, along with practical examples to illustrate each concept.

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The Safeguards Rule — Are You Compliant?

Tax professionals must take measures to prevent unauthorized access to customer information. For example, you should limit access to customer data to only those employees who need it for their jobs. Also, outsourcing tax preparation in your firm can impact this security. In October 2019, the IRS added a new question about data security responsibilities to the form to obtain or renew a PTIN. As a tax professional, it’s important to understand what the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires and how you can comply. Keep reading to learn what steps you can take to help protect the confidential information of clients and ensure GLBA compliance.

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Inflation Reduction Act — Up to $40,000 in Tax Credits with Clean Commercial Vehicle Credit

First, you need to get an EIN, then get an LLC, establish business credit, and then you can buy a car in your business name. That process may get you a new car but that does not make it a business expense or eligible for a credit. Friends, that is not how this works; that is not how any of this works. I’ve noticed a recent obsession in the online business world with writing off car expenses. Especially clean vehicles since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August. There is a correct way to do so, and then, there are a variety of ways to do it incorrectly. If you don’t believe me, just scroll through TikTok and Instagram, it will make your head hurt. Misinterpretations of Section 179 have set the internet ablaze. That is why I want to make sure we set the record straight on how the clean vehicle credit can benefit businesses. That is if your client follows the guidelines set by the IRS. *Hint, hint: It requires more than buying the car in your business name using your business credit. Let’s look at the amendments and additions to the IRC that make this credit valuable to business owners too. You have an opportunity to help your clients save $7,500 to $40,000 when they buy a qualifying clean commercial vehicle from now until December 31, 2032.

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Client Alert

IRS Tech Targets S Corp Officer Compensation

The IRS is deploying technology and big data to combat compensation under-reporting. What does this likely mean for you and your S Corps? That Reasonable Compensation challenges will likely occur outside the traditional exam process. A challenge may come from the ongoing Employment Tax Program or the recently launched CIP. From our polling, we find most tax advisors and their S Corp clients are dangerously unprepared for an IRS reasonable compensation challenge. If you are working with S corps, here’s the news you need to know...

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Live Event! Reasonable Compensation for S Corps Webinar

A TOTTB Live Webinar Event sponsored by our friends at RCReports! For two decades the IRS has been preparing an assault on reasonable compensation for S Corps. Their arsenal is now fully locked and loaded. In it, there is everything from commonsense tools to obscure memos. We will explore key court cases, IRS guidelines, preparer penalties and some of the obscure weapons the IRS has put in place. We debunk common myths and fiction on how reasonable compensation should be calculated and replace it with facts and methodologies that the IRS relies on.

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Just Good Business – Review and Shop Your Financial Accounts

The fourth quarter just started and it's time to have your clients take a look at their financial services game plan. With interest rates approaching historic highs now is the time to review financial accounts to ensure high returns on cash investments, optimize reward-bearing accounts, and minimize interest paid and fees for financial products and accounts. The goal of this review is to ensure that investments and rewards programs are tuned for optimal results and to minimize interest and fees throughout next year. I won’t be providing much in the way of specific, prescriptive advice. I am not a registered investment advisor or a certified financial planner, nor do I recommend specific products, services, or institutions (other than a subscription to this publication). Rather, I will be providing a framework for the review, encouraging you to ask good questions about the goals for the various accounts, and reminding you to consider the big picture as well as the role each part plays in it. Let’s get started!

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Should Your Practice Use a Client Portal?

You may know me as the “crypto guy” here at Think Outside the Tax Box. It might seem like that’s all I ever write about. But this time, I’m sneaking an article in while my editor is on vacation. Because I want to talk about using a client portal and why all tax professionals should be using one in their firms. Some firms may have dipped their toe into the digital waters out of necessity as a by-product of the pandemic. Others may have started the process long before Covid existed. According to a completely unscientific poll I ran on Twitter, 70 percent of firms are still processing returns at least partially on paper. This can mean either receiving paper documents from a client or delivering a hard copy of the completed return to the client. As the numbers from a Twitter survey are clearly biased toward firms already comfortable with digital technology, we can safely assume more accurate numbers are significantly higher. Since TOTTB refuses to provide me with a budget to run a full, comprehensive study, we’ll just have to run with my perfunctory data as well as published data from a poll Canopy conducted in 2021. Canopy surveyed more than a thousand small businesses and found that 63 percent admitted that their accountant did not offer any portal. More surprising, depending on whom you ask, is that more than two-thirds of respondents said they would be interested in switching to an accountant that allows them to use photos of their documents for easy sharing. While I’m not here to debate the issues of opening a gajillion .jpg files and how that might negatively affect my practice, the impact of using technology can improve your efficiencies, communications, and improve your workflow. To learn how, continue reading.

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Ethical Concerns in Using Tax Planning Software

Question: What are my ethical responsibilities when I use software to produce a tax plan? Answer: In the world of taxes, there are many ethical issues that can come into play. One area that involves judgment and expertise is when it comes to interpreting tax codes for various purposes such as taking deductions or understanding how ambiguous language might apply in certain situations – all while trying not to make any mistakes. To learn more about your ethical obligations, continue reading.

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Just Good Business – Review Your Office Security

Office security. It’s for you and your small business clients. Sometimes small business clients who have relatively low-tech operations don’t think they need to think much about office security. That’s just not true. Almost every small business has some level of liability exposure for theft of client information or their own information (banking, credit cards, account passwords, etc.)—even businesses that don’t consider themselves “web based” or “high tech” may have client or company proprietary information they want to keep secure and private. Often business owners focus on cyber security (and with good reason). But a good, comprehensive security plan creates a safety triangle around important information and the property that holds it. The three sides of this triangle are cyber security, physical security, and (at the base of it all) operations security. Keep reading to secure your future!

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