Category: Accounting
-
So you call yourself a scientist?
A personal reflection on confronting the ethics failures of scientists The manipulation of scientific research that is designed to support a political or financial goals is increasingly becoming a headline issue. Underlying the headlines is the realization that we have an embarrassing and harmful ethics crisis within the scientific community. I grew up in a scientifically focused…
-
General power of attorney
General power of attorney forms are useful for a wide range of purposes. They can be customized to specific scope of authority, length of time, and the third party. A sample power of attorney form is attached that I use for individuals and small business clients. Note that this is not a durable power of…
-
Email scams about small business accounting
Small business accountants who provide online services report an increase in the number and level of sophistication of various attempted scams presented as business service emails. The emails are typically a purchase confirmation or a request for information about services. I have received a variety of these myself and find it increasingly difficult to separate…
-
11 tax traps for small business health plans
The issue starts out innocently enough: a small business employer simply wants to help employees pay for the cost of health care. So the employer voluntary offers to make a payment for that purpose. That’s where the simplicity ends and the tangle of tax laws comes into play. It is far too easy for an employer…
-
Retroactive termination of employee benefit plans
Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet! Lately I’ve written that the general rule is that you can not retroactively terminate or amend an employee benefit plan but that under certain circumstances it may be better to do so than not. This is not a topic that lends itself well to a blog post.…
-
Quoting fees for tax return preparation
Another accountant proposed the concept that there is significant business value of having a standardized and rehearsed response to an initial call from a potential client asking about tax work. I agree. We presume that a primary motivation of the caller is to push for price information. But giving a price with limited information is risky and,…
-
S corporation vs. single member LLC
This issue comes up again and again in my tax practice: why do business owners and professionals establish S corporations when a single member LLC will suffice? Let professionals continue to set up one owner S corps. Single member LLCs offer the same legal protection but are considered “disregarded entities” for tax purposes. An LLC is…
-
Is your small business ready for the change in credit card rules?
We are now only six weeks away from a major shift in financial risk that affects every small business that accepts credit card payments. Yet many small business owners are still unaware of the change or have not considered the immediate impact of this fundamental change in their business. Beginning October 1 2015 a business that accepts a stolen…
-
Reconciliation problem with Quickbooks
I am having a bank account reconciliation problem with QuickBooks and so this post is created so that i can ask for help with the diagnosis. The problem seems clear: Transactions are uncleared and are correctly marked as uncleared in the bank account register as illustrated. 2. Yet the same uncleared transactions are included in…