Business Strategies Archives - Page 2 of 18 - Think Outside the Tax Box

Business Strategies

By Timalyn Bowens, EA

An Overview of Health Reimbursement Arrangements

Life is the best teacher, especially in the tax industry. You can take all the continuing education that your heart desires, but sometimes the information doesn’t seem to really click until you have hands-on experience. That’s how it was for me when it came to Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). I learned about them in school. I even remember learning about them at the first accounting firm I worked at. But it wasn’t until I was working with a small business owner with his own “insurance” that I got it.

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A Winner of a Losing Hobby Case

Wolfgang Frederick Kraske, representing himself in Tax Court, pulled off a rare feat. He managed to get two opinions for the price of one in a relatively low stakes case . My friend Lew Taishoff found the regular decision about the $4,574 Section 6662(a) accuracy related penalty to be of great interest . I think the more interesting story is in the memo opinion that covers the tax deficiency of $22,687 for the years 2011 and 2012. It is mostly about Section 183: Activities not engaged in for profit, commonly referred to as the hobby loss rule. Although in this case, the activity does not even seem to get up to the level of a hobby, much less a business conducted for profit. I didn’t dig any deeper into the case, so the story you are getting is what Judge John H. Gale concluded. Kraske might have had something to say if I had interviewed him.

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Harnessing the Power of Client Testimonials: Boosting Trust and Referrals

When I started my business, referrals and testimonials were not on my mind. Like most entrepreneurs, my crucial motivator was to have freedom of time for my family, to expand my skill set, and to remove the cap on my earnings potential. When I got my first client as a side hustle, my referral source was a board member who knew my skills very well and recommended me to the non-profit he served as treasurer. In December 2018, a prospect asked me for referrals, and I had no idea what to say. There was only a little besides my resume and employer as a reference. Then I thought, hey, I have my non-profit client, and I asked my client whether they would speak with this prospect and answer any questions they had, and they agreed. That’s when I realized the power of referrals and testimonials.

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Small Biz Faces a Huge New Reporting Reg Next Year

Regulatory tsunamis come in batches. By now, for example, most of you have heard about the tax-reporting requirement slated to kick in next year, where the IRS would've learned about the income of individual taxpayers who made just $600 on the likes of eBay. That sounded like a looming nightmare -- until the IRS suddenly put it off a year two days before Thanksgiving. (Sometimes removing tax regulations without warning creates as much confusion as adding them.) Small businesses aren’t off the regulatory hook that easily for 2024. Come January 1, a new ownership-reporting requirement begins for millions of American companies. Now’s the time to prepare yourself and your company.

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S Corporation Shareholder-Employee Reasonable Compensation

The S corporation is a powerful tool for small business owners to manage their business efficiently and reduce payroll taxes on owner’s profits. The primary benefit small business owners get, when organized as an S corporation, is the opportunity to avoid payroll taxes on distributions after paying reasonable compensation. A reasonable wage/salary is a must for shareholder-employee/s. However, the shareholder-employee soon discovers that the lower her wage is, the lower the payroll taxes. Why not pay no wage? Or only a token wage? Of course, the IRS knows those tricks and requires the company to pay “reasonable compensation” to shareholder-employees so they’ll submit proper payroll taxes. The IRS can adjust wages to reflect reasonable compensation. Family members of the shareholder must also receive reasonable compensation for services rendered. In this article we will begin by debunking urban legends surrounding S corporation reasonable compensation followed by calculating a reasonable compensation package before finishing with a strategy.

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Client Alert

Mastering Email Marketing for Accountants: Strategies for Effective Client Communication

I knew little about email marketing when I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2018. I used emails to communicate regularly with team members, vendors, board members, etc. Little did I know that having an email list of prospects and effective campaigns are a way to grow revenues. We are in a time when digital communication, specifically email marketing, has been and continues to be one of the most potent tools for business owners, especially accountants, seeking to enhance client relationships and drive business growth. Many perceive that our accounting industry is traditional; however, we’ve finally included marketing in our world and established new avenues for engagement. Here, I will shed light on the crucial role of email marketing in the accounting sector and provide actionable strategies for effective client communication.

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Staying Afloat in Tax Seas: Understanding the IRS’s Moratorium on ERC

Question: Should I even bother assisting my clients with filing new ERC claims? Answer: In light of the IRS's recent moratorium on processing new Employee Retention Credit (ERC) claims and the introduction of a withdrawal option for certain employers, it's understandable that you might be wondering whether to assist your clients with filing new claims. The answer, like a well-prepared tax return, is nuanced and deserves a detailed examination.

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An Alphabet Soup of Confusion: LLCs, BOI, and UPL

By now I hope that all tax professionals have heard of the FinCEN requirement for certain entities to report beneficial ownership information starting in 2024. The requirement is causing confusion because tax and accounting professionals feel that this could be an opportunity to either add value to an existing engagement, could be a new revenue stream, or could be a huge potential for liability. What follows is a brief review of the law and the requirements, an analysis of the main issues, and some recommendations for practitioners wondering how to help their clients while limiting their professional liability.

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Electronic Commerce Creates Confusing Sales Tax Obligations

Any company engaged in e-commerce, i.e., selling online, knows that the ability to reach buyers and customers remotely can juice the bottom line. State and local tax jurisdictions around the country know that, too, especially the bottom line of their sales tax coffers. Now every state with a statewide sales tax has a threshold past which remote sellers must collect and remit state sales tax. Failure to do so can incur big penalties, or worse, and there’s a lot to know based on where and what you sell online.

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Client Alert
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