Category: Self-employed
-
Who benefits the most from tax planning?
Our tax laws provide more opportunity to some people than others. I find that some people can save tens of thousands of dollars with little effort through active tax planning while others might save only a thousand dollars or so. Obviously these high impact people are the ones that tax planners like me want to…
-
First five strategies to deal with the new tax law
My action plan for bringing actionable information to clients as soon as the tax bill becomes law. Update December 31, 2017: Major parts of the law become effective tomorrow. I’ve moved past most of the preliminary points in this article and am now focused on the actions that can make the most immediate impact on…
-
Facebook Live: “30 Minutes to Faster, Easier, Cheaper Small Business Accounting”
Look for online announcements of upcoming presentations. I will be hosting a series of free, short, fast-paced online programs for small business owners, self-employed folks and part-time freelancers. The intent is to help us prepare to save time and money on tax accounting in 2018. It will be Facebook Live presentation with the ability to…
-
The coming revolution in small business health plans
The most dramatic change in small business health plans is expected be introduced by the Trump administration later this week. By relying on executive branch power rather than congressional lawmaking, the administration can effectively revolutionize small business health plans. How is this possible? Isn’t health insurance controlled by state law? Yes but the biggest deterrent…
-
Tax stress?
This is the time of year when IRS and state auditors pick up the pace of sending out examination notices and this causes some people a lot of stress. I’ve heard plenty of stories about how a person lost sleep or couldn’t enjoy their weekend worrying about the IRS letter. Only one in four of these…
-
Estimating the cost of COBRA coverage
Yesterday I took a telephone call from a woman who planned to leave her job soon to start a business. She needs to estimate the cost of COBRA health coverage to compare to her other options. This is a simple but important step in planning to launch a business. We presume that most people know…
-
We help with Turbotax returns
Self-preparers have an easy option for professional support! For many years I’ve promoted the concept that most people should be able to file their own tax return without outside help. In cases where the taxes are based on salaried income, investment income and other well-documented sources, it makes sense to file your own taxes online and…
-
Best tax shelters for 2017
Will this be the year that you reduce or eliminate your federal income taxes? I help reduce taxes for clients with income income ranging from $50,000 to $4,300,000. There are plenty of legal and well-proven tax shelters available to taxpayers in every category. The top ten most common tax avoidance strategies are covered here. Tax…
-
When is it worthwhile to challenge a tax demand?
Is it worthwhile for a taxpayer to dispute a demand from the IRS or state tax authority for additional tax payment? Does the expected savings resulting from a tax case justify the cost of the dispute process? The answer, we might suspect, it that “it depends”. It depends on the type of demand, the amount and the dispute process that is…
-
Who pays more, who pays less under 2017 tax reforms
Federal income tax changes are likely in early 2017 under a new Republican-led government. While we do not know all the details yet, it seems that we can formulate a few basic trends common to the Trump and Ryan tax reform plans. There is a strong reason to believe that the following tax reform proposals…