Author: Leon Clinton

Tax

Tax Due Dates for October 2013

Tax Due Dates for October 2013

October 10 Employees who work for tips – If you received $20 or more in tips during September, report them to your employer. You can use Form 4070.
October 15 Individuals – If you have an automatic 6-month extension to file your income tax return for 2012, file Form 1040, 1040A, or 1040EZ and pay any tax, interest, and penalties due.Electing Large Partnerships – File a 2012 calendar-year return (Form 1065-B). This due date applies only if you were given an additional 6-month extension. See March 15 for the due date for furnishing the Schedules K-1 to the partners.Employers (nonpayroll withholding) – If the monthly deposit rule applies, deposit the tax for payments in September.

Employers (Social Security, Medicare, and withheld income tax) – If the monthly deposit rule applies, deposit the tax for payments in September.
October 31 Employers – Social Security, Medicare, and withheld income tax. File form 941 for the third quarter of 2013. Deposit any undeposited tax. (If your tax liability is less than $2,500, you can pay it in full with a timely filed return.) If you deposited the tax for the quarter in full and on time, you have until November 12 to file the return.Certain Small Employers – Deposit any undeposited tax if your tax liability is $2,500 or more for 2013 but less than $2,500 for the third quarter.Employers – Federal Unemployment Tax. Deposit the tax owed through September if more than $500.
Quickbooks

QuickBooks’ Custom Fields: An Overview

The beauty of QuickBooks is that it can be used for so many different kinds of businesses. Its smart design lets realtors and retail shops, plumbers and plastic surgeons use it to track income and expenses, pay bills and invoice customers, and to run those all-important reports.

But Intuit knows that QuickBooks can’t–and shouldn’t–tailor itself to individual business types (except in the industry-specific versions). So its structure and tools are somewhat generic and as universal as possible.

That’s where custom fields come in. You can simply use them for your own informational purposes, but QuickBooks also lets you create and add fields to your existing customer, vendor, employee and item records and forms, and use them as filters in reports.

A Common Application

Let’s say you want to search for your best customers to create a targeted marketing mailing.

Start by opening the Customer Center and opening any customer’s record there. Click on the Additional Info tab. In the lower right corner of this dialog box, click on Define Fields. This box (with some fields already defined in this example) opens:


Figure 1: You can create custom fields for your lists of names in this dialog box. 

You want to send mailings to customers who order frequently, or who regularly purchase big-ticket items. You can call them your “High-Value Customers.” Click in the first field that’s available in the Label column and type that phrase, then tab over to the Custcolumn and click in it to enter a checkmark. Click OK. The Edit Customer dialog box opens with the new custom field included.

This field will now appear in all of your existing customer records as well as any new ones you create. You’ll need to open the record for each High-Value Customer, click on theAdditional Info tab and enter “Yes” on the corresponding line.


Figure 2: Custom fields appear in this box in your customer records. 

Using Custom Fields in Items

If you sell physical inventory, custom fields will probably be needed in your item records. You might want to use them for t-shirt colors or sizes, for example, or to store serial or model numbers. They can be employed for all items types except subtotals, sales tax items and sales tax group items.

The process is similar to the one you used to define custom fields in your contact records. Open the Lists menu and select Item List (or Fixed Asset Item List where appropriate). Click Custom Fields in the dialog box that opens.

Tip: The Custom Fields tool is also available in the New Item dialog box. So you can move directly to that step as you create an item record if you’d like.

Click Define Fields and add your field(s). Be sure to put a checkmark in the Use column, and click OK.


Figure 3: QuickBooks also lets you define and use custom fields in your item records. 

Reports and Forms

Custom fields can be invaluable when it comes to using them in forms and reports. Your fields will automatically appear at the bottom of the Filter list within your reports’ customization tools, but you’ll have to add them manually to any forms where they should appear.

Warning: You should probably enlist our help before you customize forms. QuickBooks provides tools to help you through this process, but you will encounter some potentially confusing messages as you add fields to forms, and you may have to use the Layout Designer, which can present quite a challenge.

Let’s say you wanted to find out how many blue coffee mugs Suzanne Jenkins sold in November. You’d proceed like you normally do when you’re customizing a report, but you’d have to scroll down to the end of the Filter list to find the Color custom field that you created. You’d enter the word “Blue” in the field supplied. Your Sales by Item Summaryreport setup would look something like this:


Figure 4: Filtering a report using a custom field. 

This report will only run properly if you’ve added your Color field to your sales forms. Again, we’d be happy to help you with this, and to explore other uses for QuickBooks custom fields.

Tax

What Income Is Nontaxable?

Most types of income are taxable, but some are not. Income can include money, property or services that you receive. Here are some examples of income that are usually not taxable:

  • Child support payments;
  • Gifts, bequests and inheritances;
  • Welfare benefits;
  • Damage awards for physical injury or sickness;
  • Cash rebates from a dealer or manufacturer for an item you buy; and
  • Reimbursements for qualified adoption expenses.

Some income is not taxable except under certain conditions. Examples include:

Life insurance proceeds paid to you because of an insured person’s death are usually not taxable. However, if you redeem a life insurance policy for cash, any amount that is more than the cost of the policy is taxable.

Income you get from a qualified scholarship is normally not taxable. Amounts you use for certain costs, such as tuition and required course books, are not taxable. However, amounts used for room and board are taxable.

All income, such as wages and tips, is taxable unless the law specifically excludes it. This includes non-cash income from bartering, such as the exchange of property or services. Both parties must include the fair market value of goods or services received as income on their tax return.

If you received a refund, credit or offset of state or local income taxes in 2012, you may be required to report this amount. If you did not receive a 2012 Form 1099-G, check with the government agency that made the payments to you. That agency may have made the form available only in an electronic format. You will need to get instructions from the agency to retrieve this document. Report any taxable refund you received even if you did not receive Form 1099-G.

Questions? Give us a call. We’re happy to help!

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