Author: tonynova
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Do I need to file a 2015 federal income tax return?
This is a simple question but much like the rest of our tax law, the answer is complicated. In addition, you may likely want to file a tax return in a number of circumstances even if you are not required to do so. Kelly Erb does a great job in explaining this topic in Forbes and…
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Use American Express with QuickBooks to save bookkeeping time
Typically the most time consuming task in small business accounting is recording the details of expense transactions. The built-in coordination between American ExpressOPEN business card and QuickBooks can cut that time requirement. Simply enroll in the “Connect to QuickBooks” feature at no extra cost to have transactions sent to QuickBooks daily. Employees can also have their transactions…
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Personal principles of tax preparation work
I have these four personal beliefs or principles that guide my tax preparation work. Publishing these as “beliefs” here does not mean that they reflect current realities in the industry. Tax preparation fees should be bench-marked in some manner simply because tax filing assistance is a service stemming from a government requirement that affects virtually everybody. Tax preparation…
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Revisiting issues related to online content management
What I learned from plagiarists Yesterday morning I learned that some of my blog posts and articles and even my trademark were being used by unlicensed and unauthorized businesses to promote themselves. It especially came as quite a shock that someone within professional CPA firms would go to my web site, copy an entire article,…
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Unique church employee health plan
I received an interesting telephone call today from a woman who is working or designing an employee health plan for her small employer, a church. I have helped set up benefit plans (mostly the old-fashioned reimbursement type plans that are no longer allowed today under the Affordable Care Act) for many small churches and so…
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Self-prepared tax data hack shows risk in personal devices
The nation’s 3rd largest submitter of self-prepared income tax returns reports that data thieves stole customers’ financial information. The interesting part of this story is that the company, TaxAct, says the thieves stole the username and password data elsewhere (for example, hacking individual cell phones) and then used those legitimate log in credentials to gain…
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How to deal with an IRS penalty
The IRS issues about 50 million taxpayer penalties each year to the pool of about 100 million taxpayers who file returns. That would 1 out of every 2 filers if the penalties were evenly distributed! In reality, multiple penalties are bundled together and assessed against fewer taxpayers. Yet the number of automated tax penalty assessments for…
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“Watcha gonna do?” – Tax professionals look at ACA compliance
How should a tax preparer handle suspected ACA penalties for small businesses? This post is inspired by the recent frustration expressed by an accountant who is a Facebook friend. My friend commented on one of my posts that even after a substantial investment of his time to learn and apply provisions of the Affordable Care act,…