Month: January 2017
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Trump sparks tax protest plans
Over the past month I’ve heard and read about a number of tax protest plans. Some are idiotic, others are criminal. Some might actually work. Some taxpayers want to take advantage of imagined tax reductions promoted by scammers. Other refuse to support the federal government led by Donald Trump and are looking for the safest…
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The tax madness has begun
Yesterday, still a few days before the IRS officially begins accepting 2016 tax returns, an accountant shared this advertisement found by a client: Of course, the tax client wanted to know how to double their tax refund.
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Health care reform in a nutshell
It doesn’t matter whether we call it the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, or Trumpcare, or the Republican Plan – the difficult issues and available solutions are the same. We can’t afford the solutions we want and we don’t have the political will to implement the solutions that we can afford. I’ve reported on the practical issues…
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Top five traits of a good director
This survey by Russell Reynolds says that the the top trait of a good corporate director is courage.
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ACA is not repealed
There is much misinformation today about the fate of Obamacare. In short, people are overreacting to the Senate’s vote and reading too much into it. Remember two things: 1) Obamacare is still the law of the land. 2) Trumpcare will not be significantly different from Obamacare. I posted a longer version on LinkedIn,
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Tip for 1099-MISC processing
I just finished the required 1099-MISC year end processing work for my on businesses because the new due date is January 31 this year. This task is pretty easy within QuickBooks. It took less than 15 minutes and cost less than $15. But I noticed one snag: it is difficult to tell which vendors are…
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Two new digital consumer scams
It seems that the number of ways consumers face financial risk online is expanding rapidly. No matter what we measures we take to protect ourselves, it seems that professional online scams are one step ahead of us. An online conversation tonight with a business friend triggered my to recall two recent suspected consumer frauds. I say…
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Taxation of S corporation shareholder health insurance
Taxation of health insurance for S corporation shareholders is one of the most discussed and convoluted topics in the accounting industry. This article by Shaw and Associates in Colorado presents the topic in a useful format for setting up a payroll system that I’ve not seen in other presentations: http://www.kevinshawcpa.com/s-corporation-shareholder-health-insurance-instructions/
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Warning about Woodard/Intuit CPE program
I attended a two-day CPE program September 21-22, 2016 and was denied five CPE credits because their server would not properly record the responses to attendance questions. The sponsor and presenters were aware of the problem in real time via chat communications in the side bar accompanying the live broadcast. The CPE issuer apparently had…
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The 100 day plan
Trump’s ‘First 100 Days’ agenda includes repealing environmental protections, cutting consumer and small business finance regulations built into the Dodd-Frank Act, giving the rich and big corporations a huge tax cut, and putting in place a cabinet that doesn’t believe in the Voting Rights Act or public schools or Medicare or the Fair Housing Act.…