Category: Accounting

2020 has been a year of turbulence and has created chaos for many Americans including governmental issued shutdowns, quarantines, social distancing and potentially filing for unemployment. Both the United States and the State of Iowa set records for unemployment claims during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment claims are down from the initial surge, but remain high compared to traditional levels as Congress continues to try to find ways to help distressed individuals and businesses. This blog is aiming to provide some clarity on the taxation of those unemployment benefits to prevent already distressed individuals from receiving additional bad news next tax season.

Read More

COVID-19 has created unusual times for all of us and it has been especially trying for small businesses.   With all the uncertainty, it has business owners concerned more than usual about their financial condition and their employee situation.  One thing that may help during this crisis is hiring your children to work in the family business. Read More

Many of the businesses, who received the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan in April and May, have spent all of the funds.  Now, they are anxious to get the loan forgiven so they do not need to repay it. However, is this the time to complete the forgiveness form and send it to their banker…or not?   For now, we say “Don’t rush!   It is better to wait until more information is known.”  Here are 5 reasons to wait.

Read More

As we ride out the fury of this COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are finding ourselves working from home these days.  Therefore, I thought this would be a good time to do a refresher on what qualifies for a home office deduction.

Read More

I think you will agree it’s time.  It’s time for Covid-19 to jump ship and quit causing horrific devastation throughout the world.  Unfortunately, that is not the case at this time as COVID-19 continues to affect all of us, even as we start the reopening of our State.  As we continue to weather the storm and navigate these uncharted waters, I thought it would be good to discuss the various options that could help your businesses maintain cash flow and stay afloat.

Read More

The Coronavirus pandemic has led to a significant amount of change in 2020. The way people live, work, interact and just about everything else has been affected. In the news and press conferences there have been several references to extending the tax deadline and you may be wondering what that means for you or your business. The information below will break down the changes to tax filing due dates for individuals, businesses and other entities. However, there are several other considerations and implications that these due date changes bring that you should be aware of.

Read More

In 1859, Charles Dickins wrote “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times”.  Could he have possibly been talking about the year 2020?   How could our world change so quickly – from a booming, thriving economy with a record high stock market and low unemployment rate, to a weakened state of job loss and business closures.  And as bad as this is, it pales in comparison to the severe health issues and loss of life we are experiencing caused by the horrific Coronavirus.

Read More

Oops, I didn’t do any tax planning and 2019 is gone!  Before you give up entirely, here are a few ideas that you can still do that might help your 2019 tax situation!

Read More

On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed into law the “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement” Act or “SECURE” Act for short. This law includes several provisions related to retirement and college savings plans to make it easier and less costly for employers to set up and more accessible for employees to save for retirement. There are also items that help older individuals stretch their savings, so they have less chance of outliving their assets.

Read More

In working with many small and medium-sized business, I’ve found that people generally don’t like to talk about fraud. Some people are afraid their business will be susceptible to fraud and, therefore, they are paranoid to talk about it.

Read More

Filing and filling out tax forms can be overwhelming and confusing at times especially at year-end with all of the other deadlines and all we really want is to enjoy the holiday cheer! Today, we provided a few best practices that can be applied now to help when filing 1099-Miscellaneous forms and the 2019 Forms W-2.

Read More

Halloween is over and the first snow has fallen already…and it’s way too early, in my opinion! But what it is not too early for is yearend tax planning discussion. Here are the top five reasons I would recommend an early planning discussion with my clients. Read More

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) made several changes to deductions for meal and entertainment expenses. I went through these changes in my blog of January 2018, explaining that many of the expenses that were either 100% or 50% deductible were changed to being only 50% or not deductible at all. The biggest change was that entertainment expenses would no longer be deductible at all.

Read More

Starting school can not only costly for students, but many teachers and aide also incur extra costs as they purchase extra supplies for the classroom. There is a special tax deduction for educators that allows a teacher, counselor, principal, or aide to deduct up to $250 of these expenses. 

Read More