News

Claiming an Elderly Parent or Relative as a Dependent Are you taking care of an elderly parent or relative? Whether it’s driving to doctor appointments, paying for nursing home care or medical expenses, or handling their personal finances, dealing with an elderly parent or relative can be emotionally and...

ACA Reporting Requirements for Employers The health care law contains tax provisions that affect employers and it is the size and structure of a workforce that determine which parts of the law apply to which employers. Calculating the number of employees is especially important for employers that have close...

2020 Tax Withholding: the new Form W-4 Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Certificate has been redesigned for 2020. Previously, income tax withholding was based on an employee’s marital status and withholding allowances or tied to the value of the personal exemption. With the revised Form W-4, however, income tax withholding is generally...

Tax Extenders, Retirement Plan Changes, and Repeals In addition to averting a government shutdown, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, signed into law on December 20, 2019, extended a number of expired tax provisions for business and individuals through 2020. It also included several retirement plan changes and repealed...

Tax Filing Season Begins January 27, 2020, marked the start of this year’s tax filing season. Complicating matters is a newly revised Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. With more than 150 million individual tax returns expected to be filed for the 2019 tax year, here’s what individual taxpayers...

Watch Out for Gift Card Scams There’s never an off-season when it comes to scammers and thieves who want to trick people to scam them out of money, steal their personal information, or talk them into engaging in questionable behavior with their taxes. While scam attempts typically peak during...

Tax Due Dates for February 2020 February 10 Employees – who work for tips. If you received $20 or more in tips during January, report them to your employer. You can use Form 4070. Employers – Social Security, Medicare, and withheld income tax. File Form 941 for the fourth quarter of...

How to Clean up QuickBooks for 2020 Yes, it’s here again: a new year. You may have a lengthy to-do list full of tasks that must be done before you close out the books for 2019, but there’s one task – or rather, a series of tasks – that...

Tax Planning Includes Keeping Good Records It’s January and tax season is right around the corner. For many people that means scrambling to collect receipts, mileage logs, and other tax-related documents needed to prepare their tax returns. If this describes you, chances are, you’re wishing you’d kept on top...

Opportunity Zone Guidance Finalized Final regulations were recently issued regarding details about investment in qualified opportunity zones (QOZ) that modified and finalized proposed regulations for QOFs and QOZ businesses that were previously issued on October 28, 2018, and May 1, 2019. The final regulations provide additional guidance for taxpayers...

Standard Mileage Rates for 2020 Starting January 1, 2020, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car, van, pickup or panel truck are as follows: 57.5 cents per mile driven for business use, down one half of a cent from the rate for 2019 17 cents per...

Starting a Home-Based Business More than half of all businesses today are home-based. Every day, people are striking out and achieving economic and creative independence by turning their skills into dollars. Garages, basements, and attics are being transformed into the corporate headquarters of the newest entrepreneurs – home-based business...