Employee Benefit Plan Audits Archives - Page 24 of 32

Change management doesn’t have to be scary

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|November 1, 2018

Business owners are constantly bombarded with terminology and buzzwords. Although you probably feel a need to keep up with the latest trends, you also may find that many of these ideas induce more anxiety than relief. One example is change management.

This term is used to describe the philosophies and processes an organization uses to manage change. Putting change management into practice in your company may seem scary. What is our philosophy toward change? How should we implement change for best results? Can’t we just avoid all this and let the chips fall where they may?

About that last question — yes, you could. But businesses that proactively manage change tend to suffer far fewer negative consequences from business transformations large and small. Here are some ways to implement change management slowly and, in doing so, make it a little less scary.

Set the tone

When a company creates a positive culture, change is easier. Engaged, well-supported employees feel connected to your mission and are more likely to buy in to transformative ideas. So, the best place to start laying the foundation for successful change management is in the HR department.

When hiring, look for candidates who are open to new ideas and flexible in their approaches to a position. As you “on board” new employees, talk about the latest developments at your company and the possibility of future transformation. From there, encourage openness to change in performance reviews.

Strive for solutions

The most obvious time to seek change is when something goes wrong. Unfortunately, this is also when a company can turn on itself. Fingers start pointing and the possibility of positive change begins to drift further and further away as conflicts play out.

Among the core principles of change management is to view every problem as an opportunity to grow. When you’ve formally discussed this concept among your managers and introduced it to your employees, you’ll be in a better position to avoid a destructive reaction to setbacks and, instead, use them to improve your organization.

Change from the top down

It’s not uncommon for business owners to implement change via a “bottom-up” approach. Doing so involves ordering lower-level employees to modify how they do something and then growing frustrated when resistance arises.

For this reason, another important principle of change management is transforming a business from the top down. Every change, no matter how big or small, needs to originate with leadership and then gradually move downward through the organizational chart through effective communication.

Get started

As the cliché goes, change is scary — and change management can be even more so. But many of the principles of the concept are likely familiar to you. In fact, your company may already be doing a variety of things to make change management far less daunting. Contact us to discuss this and other business-improvement ideas.

Make your nonprofit’s accounting function more efficient

Accounting & Assurance|October 31, 2018

How efficient is your not-for-profit? Even tightly run organizations can use some improvement — particularly in the accounting area. Adopting the following six tips can help improve timeliness and accuracy.

1. Set cutoff policies. Create policies for the monthly cutoff of invoicing and recording expenses — and adhere to them. For example, require all invoices to be submitted to the accounting department by the end of each month. Too many adjustments — or waiting for different employees or departments to turn in invoices and expense reports — waste time and can delay the production of financial statements.

2. Reconcile accounts monthly. You may be able to save considerable time at the end of the year by reconciling your bank accounts shortly after the end of each month. It’s easier to correct errors when you catch them early. Also reconcile accounts payable and accounts receivable data to your statements of financial position.

3. Batch items to process. Don’t enter only one invoice or cut only one check at a time. Set aside a block of time to do the job when you have multiple items to process. Some organizations process payments only once or twice a month. If you make your schedule available to everyone, fewer “emergency” checks and deposits will surface.

4. Insist on oversight. Make sure that the individual or group that’s responsible for financial oversight (for example, your CFO, treasurer or finance committee) reviews monthly bank statements, financial statements and accounting entries for obvious errors or unexpected amounts. The value of such reviews increases when they’re performed right after each monthly reporting period ends.

5. Exploit your software’s potential. Many organizations underuse the accounting software package they’ve purchased because they haven’t learned its full functionality. If needed, hire a trainer to review the software’s basic functions with staff and teach time-saving shortcuts.

6. Review your processes. Accounting systems can become inefficient over time if they aren’t monitored. Look for labor-intensive steps that could be automated or steps that don’t add value and could be eliminated. Often, for example, steps are duplicated by two different employees or the process is slowed down by “handing off” part of a project.

Tenancy-in-common: A versatile estate planning tool

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|October 18, 2018

If you hold significant real estate investments, tenancy-in-common (TIC) ownership can be a powerful, versatile estate planning tool. A TIC interest is an undivided fractional interest in property. The property isn’t split into separate parcels. Rather, each TIC owner has the right to use and enjoy the entire property.

TIC in action

An individual TIC can’t sell or lease the underlying property, or take other actions with respect to the property as a whole, without the other owners’ consent. But each owner has the right to sell, mortgage or transfer his or her TIC interest. This includes the right to transfer the interest, either directly or in trust, to his or her heirs or other beneficiaries.

Someone who buys or inherits a TIC interest takes over the original owner’s undivided fractional interest in the property, sharing ownership with the other tenants in common. Each TIC interest holder has a right of “partition.” That is, in the event of a dispute among the co-owners over management of the property, an owner can petition a court to divide the property into separate parcels or to force a sale and divide the proceeds among the co-owners.

TIC and estate planning

Here are a couple of the ways TIC interests can be used to accomplish your estate planning goals.

Distributing your wealth. Dividing real estate among your heirs — your children, for example — can be a challenge. If you transfer real estate to them as joint tenants, their options for dealing with the property individually will be limited. What if one child wants to hold on to the real estate, but the other two want to cash out? Transferring TIC interests can avoid disputes by giving each heir the power to dispose of his or her interest without forcing a sale of the underlying property.

Reducing gift and estate taxes. Fractional interests generally are less marketable than whole interests. Plus, because an owner must share management with several co-owners, fractional interests provide less control. As a result, TIC interests may enjoy valuation discounts for gift and estate tax purposes.

Get an appraisal

If you’re considering using TIC interests in your estate plan, it’s critical to obtain an appraisal to support your valuation of these interests. Keep in mind that appraising a TIC interest is a two-step process. It begins with an appraisal of the real estate as a whole. Then an appraisal of the fractional interests follows. In some cases, it may be desirable to use two appraisers: a real estate appraiser for the underlying property and a business valuation expert to quantify and support any valuation discounts you claim. Contact us with questions.

Tax-free fringe benefits help small businesses and their employees

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|October 8, 2018

In today’s tightening job market, to attract and retain the best employees, small businesses need to offer not only competitive pay, but also appealing fringe benefits. Benefits that are tax-free are especially attractive to employees. Let’s take a quick look at some popular options.

Insurance

Businesses can provide their employees with various types of insurance on a tax-free basis. Here are some of the most common:

Health insurance. If you maintain a health care plan for employees, coverage under the plan isn’t taxable to them. Employee contributions are excluded from income if pretax coverage is elected under a cafeteria plan. Otherwise, such amounts are included in their wages, but may be deductible on a limited basis as an itemized deduction.

Disability insurance. Your premium payments aren’t included in employees’ income, nor are your contributions to a trust providing disability benefits. Employees’ premium payments (or other contributions to the plan) generally aren’t deductible by them or excludable from their income. However, they can make pretax contributions to a cafeteria plan for disability benefits, which are excludable from their income.

Long-term care insurance. Your premium payments aren’t taxable to employees. However, long-term care insurance can’t be provided through a cafeteria plan.

Life insurance. Your employees generally can exclude from gross income premiums you pay on up to $50,000 of qualified group term life insurance coverage. Premiums you pay for qualified coverage exceeding $50,000 are taxable to the extent they exceed the employee’s coverage contributions.

Other types of tax-advantaged benefits

Insurance isn’t the only type of tax-free benefit you can provide ¬― but the tax treatment of certain benefits has changed under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act:

Dependent care assistance. You can provide employees with tax-free dependent care assistance up to $5,000 for 2018 though a dependent care Flexible Spending Account (FSA), also known as a Dependent Care Assistance Program (DCAP).

Adoption assistance. For employees who’re adopting children, you can offer an employee adoption assistance program. Employees can exclude from their taxable income up to $13,810 of adoption benefits in 2018.

Educational assistance. You can help employees on a tax-free basis through educational assistance plans (up to $5,250 per year), job-related educational assistance and qualified scholarships.

Moving expense reimbursement. Before the TCJA, if you reimbursed employees for qualifying job-related moving expenses, the reimbursement could be excluded from the employee’s income. The TCJA suspends this break for 2018 through 2025. However, such reimbursements may still be deductible by your business.

Transportation benefits. Qualified employee transportation fringe benefits, such as parking allowances, mass transit passes and van pooling, are tax-free to recipient employees. However, the TCJA suspends through 2025 the business deduction for providing such benefits. It also suspends the tax-free benefit of up to $20 a month for bicycle commuting.

Varying tax treatment

As you can see, the tax treatment of fringe benefits varies. Contact us for more information.

Businesses aren’t immune to tax identity theft

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|September 24, 2018

Tax identity theft may seem like a problem only for individual taxpayers. But, according to the IRS, increasingly businesses are also becoming victims. And identity thieves have become more sophisticated, knowing filing practices, the tax code and the best ways to get valuable data.

How it works

In tax identity theft, a taxpayer’s identifying information (such as Social Security number) is used to fraudulently obtain a refund or commit other crimes. Business tax identity theft occurs when a criminal uses the identifying information of a business to obtain tax benefits or to enable individual tax identity theft schemes.

For example, a thief could use an Employer Identification Number (EIN) to file a fraudulent business tax return and claim a refund. Or a fraudster may report income and withholding for fake employees on false W-2 forms. Then, he or she can file fraudulent individual tax returns for these “employees” to claim refunds.

The consequences can include significant dollar amounts, lost time sorting out the mess and damage to your reputation.

Red flags

There are some red flags that indicate possible tax identity theft. For example, your business’s identity may have been compromised if:

Your business doesn’t receive expected or routine mailings from the IRS,
You receive an IRS notice that doesn’t relate to anything your business submitted, that’s about fictitious employees or that’s related to a defunct, closed or dormant business after all account balances have been paid,
The IRS rejects an e-filed return or an extension-to-file request, saying it already has a return with that identification number — or the IRS accepts it as an amended return,
You receive an IRS letter stating that more than one tax return has been filed in your business’s name, or
You receive a notice from the IRS that you have a balance due when you haven’t yet filed a return.

Keep in mind, though, that some of these could be the result of a simple error, such as an inadvertent transposition of numbers. Nevertheless, you should contact the IRS immediately if you receive any notices or letters from the agency that you believe might indicate that someone has fraudulently used your Employer Identification Number.

Prevention tips

Businesses should take steps such as the following to protect their own information as well as that of their employees:

Provide training to accounting, human resources and other employees to educate them on the latest tax fraud schemes and how to spot phishing emails.
Use secure methods to send W-2 forms to employees.
Implement risk management strategies designed to flag suspicious communications.

Of course identity theft can go beyond tax identity theft, so be sure to have a comprehensive plan in place to protect the data of your business, your employees and your customers. If you’re concerned your business has become a victim, or you have questions about prevention, please contact us.

Keeping a king in the castle with a well-maintained cash reserve

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|September 19, 2018

You’ve no doubt heard the old business cliché “cash is king.” And it’s true: A company in a strong cash position stands a much better chance of obtaining the financing it needs, attracting outside investors or simply executing its own strategic plans.

One way to ensure that there’s always a king in the castle, so to speak, is to maintain a cash reserve. Granted, setting aside a substantial amount of dollars isn’t the easiest thing to do — particularly for start-ups and smaller companies. But once your reserve is in place, life can get a lot easier.

Common metrics

Now you may wonder: What’s the optimal amount of cash to keep in reserve? The right answer is different for every business and may change over time, given fluctuations in the economy or degree of competitiveness in your industry.

If you’ve already obtained financing, your bank’s liquidity covenants can give you a good idea of how much of a cash reserve is reasonable and expected of your company. To take it a step further, you can calculate various liquidity metrics and compare them to industry benchmarks. These might include:

• Working capital = current assets – current liabilities,• Current ratio = current assets / current liabilities, and• Accounts payable turnover = cost of goods sold / accounts payable.
There may be other, more complex metrics that better apply to the nature and size of your business.

Financial forecasts

Believe it or not, many companies don’t suffer from a lack of cash reserves but rather a surplus. This often occurs because a business owner decides to start hoarding cash following a dip in the local or national economy.

What’s the problem? Substantial increases in liquidity — or metrics well above industry norms — can signal an inefficient deployment of capital.

To keep your cash reserve from getting too high, create financial forecasts for the next 12 to 18 months. For example, a monthly projected balance sheet might estimate seasonal ebbs and flows in the cash cycle. Or a projection of the worst-case scenario might be used to establish your optimal cash balance. Projections should consider future cash flows, capital expenditures, debt maturities and working capital requirements.

Formal financial forecasts provide a coherent method to building up cash reserves, which is infinitely better than relying on rough estimates or gut instinct. Be sure to compare actual performance to your projections regularly and adjust as necessary.

More isn’t always better

Just as individuals should set aside some money for a rainy day, so should businesses. But, when it comes to your company’s cash reserves, the notion that “more is better” isn’t necessarily correct. You’ve got to find the right balance. Contact us to discuss your reserve and identify your ideal liquidity metrics.

2018 Q4 tax calendar: Key deadlines for businesses and other employers

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|September 13, 2018

Here are some of the key tax-related deadlines affecting businesses and other employers during the fourth quarter of 2018. Keep in mind that this list isn’t all-inclusive, so there may be additional deadlines that apply to you. Contact us to ensure you’re meeting all applicable deadlines and to learn more about the filing requirements.

October 15

If a calendar-year C corporation that filed an automatic six-month extension:
- File a 2017 income tax return (Form 1120) and pay any tax, interest and penalties due.
- Make contributions for 2017 to certain employer-sponsored retirement plans.

October 31

Report income tax withholding and FICA taxes for third quarter 2018 (Form 941) and pay any tax due. (See exception below under “November 13.”)

November 13

Report income tax withholding and FICA taxes for third quarter 2018 (Form 941), if you deposited on time and in full all of the associated taxes due.

December 17

If a calendar-year C corporation, pay the fourth installment of 2018 estimated income taxes.

3 reasons you should continue making lifetime gifts

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|August 30, 2018

Now that the gift and estate tax exemption has reached a record high of $11.18 million (for 2018), it may seem that gifting assets to loved ones is less important than it was in previous years. However, lifetime gifts continue to provide significant benefits, whether your estate is taxable or not.

Let’s examine three reasons why making gifts remains an important part of estate planning:

1. Lifetime gifts reduce estate taxes. If your estate exceeds the exemption amount — or you believe it will in the future — regular lifetime gifts can substantially reduce your estate tax bill.

The annual gift tax exclusion allows you to give up to $15,000 per recipient ($30,000 if you “split” gifts with your spouse) tax-free without using up any of your gift and estate tax exemption. In addition, direct payments of tuition or medical expenses on behalf of your loved ones are excluded from gift tax.

Taxable gifts — that is, gifts beyond the annual exclusion amount and not eligible for the tuition and medical expense exclusion — can also reduce estate tax liability by removing future appreciation from your taxable estate. You may be better off paying gift tax on an asset’s current value rather than estate tax on its appreciated value down the road.

When gifting appreciable assets, however, be sure to consider the potential income tax implications. Property transferred at death receives a “stepped-up basis” equal to its date-of-death fair market value, which means the recipient can turn around and sell the property free of capital gains taxes. Property transferred during life retains your tax basis, so it’s important to weigh the estate tax savings against the potential income tax costs.

2. Tax laws aren’t permanent. Even if your estate is within the exemption amount now, it pays to make regular gifts. Why? Because even though the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubled the exemption amount, and that amount will be adjusted annually for inflation, the doubling expires after 2025. Without further legislation, the exemption will return to an inflation-adjusted $5 million in 2026.

Thus, taxpayers with estates in roughly the $6 million to $11 million range (twice that for married couples), whose estates would escape estate taxes if they were to die while the doubled exemption is in effect, still need to keep potential post-2025 estate tax liability in mind in their estate planning.

3. Gifts provide nontax benefits. Tax planning aside, there are other reasons to make lifetime gifts. For example, perhaps you wish to use gifting to shape your family members’ behavior — for example, by providing gifts to those who attend college. And if you own a business, gifts of interests in the business may be a key component of your ownership and management succession plan. Or you might simply wish to see your loved ones enjoy the gifts.

Regardless of the amount of your wealth, consider a program of regular lifetime giving. We can help you devise and incorporate a gifting program as part of your estate plan.

Keep it SIMPLE: A tax-advantaged retirement plan solution for small businesses

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|August 27, 2018

If your small business doesn’t offer its employees a retirement plan, you may want to consider a SIMPLE IRA. Offering a retirement plan can provide your business with valuable tax deductions and help you attract and retain employees. For a variety of reasons, a SIMPLE IRA can be a particularly appealing option for small businesses. The deadline for setting one up for this year is October 1, 2018.

The basics

SIMPLE stands for “savings incentive match plan for employees.” As the name implies, these plans are simple to set up and administer. Unlike 401(k) plans, SIMPLE IRAs don’t require annual filings or discrimination testing.

SIMPLE IRAs are available to businesses with 100 or fewer employees. Employers must contribute and employees have the option to contribute. The contributions are pretax, and accounts can grow tax-deferred like a traditional IRA or 401(k) plan, with distributions taxed when taken in retirement.

As the employer, you can choose from two contribution options:

1. Make a “nonelective” contribution equal to 2% of compensation for all eligible employees. You must make the contribution regardless of whether the employee contributes. This applies to compensation up to the annual limit of $275,000 for 2018 (annually adjusted for inflation).

2. Match employee contributions up to 3% of compensation. Here, you contribute only if the employee contributes. This isn’t subject to the annual compensation limit.

Employees are immediately 100% vested in all SIMPLE IRA contributions.

Employee contribution limits

Any employee who has compensation of at least $5,000 in any prior two years, and is reasonably expected to earn $5,000 in the current year, can elect to have a percentage of compensation put into a SIMPLE IRA.

SIMPLE IRAs offer greater income deferral opportunities than ordinary IRAs, but lower limits than 401(k)s. An employee may contribute up to $12,500 to a SIMPLE IRA in 2018. Employees age 50 or older can also make a catch-up contribution of up to $3,000. This compares to $5,500 and $1,000, respectively, for ordinary IRAs, and to $18,500 and $6,000 for 401(k)s. (Some or all of these limits may increase for 2019 under annual cost-of-living adjustments.)

You’ve got options

A SIMPLE IRA might be a good choice for your small business, but it isn’t the only option. The more-complex 401(k) plan we’ve already mentioned is one alternative. Some others are a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) and a defined-benefit pension plan. These two plans don’t allow employee contributions and have other pluses and minuses. Contact us to learn more about a SIMPLE IRA or to hear about other retirement plan alternatives for your business.

IRS issues guidance on new bonus depreciation rules

Tax Prep, Planning & Strategy|August 15, 2018

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) significantly expands bonus depreciation under Section 168(k) of the Internal Revenue Code for both regular tax and alternative minimum tax (AMT) purposes. Now, the IRS has released proposed regulations that clarify the requirements that businesses must satisfy to claim bonus depreciation deductions. Although the regs are only proposed at this point, the IRS will allow taxpayers to rely on them for property placed in service after September 27, 2017, for tax years ending on or after September 28, 2017.

Previous law

Under pre-TCJA law, businesses could claim a first-year bonus depreciation deduction equal to 50% of the basis of qualifying new (not used) assets placed in service in 2017. The deduction was available for the cost of qualifying new assets, including computers, purchased software, vehicles, machinery, equipment and office furniture. Used assets didn’t qualify for the deduction.

You also could claim 50% bonus depreciation for qualified improvement property (QIP), generally defined as any qualified improvement to the interior portion of a nonresidential building if placed in service after the building was placed in service. QIP costs didn’t include costs for the enlargement of a building, an elevator, an escalator, or a building’s internal structural framework.

TCJA changes

The TCJA allows 100% first-year bonus depreciation in Year 1 for qualifying assets placed in service between September 28, 2017, and December 31, 2022. The bonus depreciation percentage will begin to phase out in 2023, dropping 20% each year for four years until it expires at the end of 2026, absent congressional action to extend the break. (The phaseout reductions are delayed a year for certain property with longer production periods and aircraft.)

To qualify for 100% bonus depreciation, property generally must:

Fall within the definition of “qualified property,”
Be placed in service between September 28, 2017, and December 31, 2022, and
Be acquired by the taxpayer after September 27, 2017.

The proposed regs provide additional guidance on several of these elements.

Qualified property

Under the proposed regs, “qualified property” for bonus depreciation purposes is defined to include:

Property depreciated under the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) that has a recovery period of 20 years or less (generally, tangible personal property),
Certain computer software,
Water utility property,
Qualified film or television productions,
Qualified live theatrical productions, and
Specified plants.

For 50% first-year bonus depreciation, it also includes QIP acquired after September 27, 2017, and placed in service before January 1, 2018.

Congress intended for QIP placed in service after 2017 to have a 15-year MACRS recovery period, which would make it eligible for bonus depreciation. However, due to a drafting error, the 15-year recovery period for QIP isn’t reflected in the statutory language of the TCJA. Absent a technical correction to fix this glitch, QIP placed in service after 2017 has a 39-year MACRS recovery period and, therefore, is ineligible for bonus depreciation.

Qualified property also doesn’t encompass property that must be depreciated under the Alternative Depreciation System (ADS). That includes MACRS nonresidential real property, residential rental property and QIP held by real estate businesses that elect out of the TCJA’s limit on the business interest deduction. It also includes property with a recovery period of 10 years or more held by a farming business that elects out of the business interest limit.

The proposed regs detail how taxpayers can elect out of bonus depreciation. They also provide rules for electing 50% bonus depreciation, instead of 100% bonus depreciation, for property acquired after September 27, 2017, and placed into service during the taxable year that includes September 28, 2017.

Acquired used property

The proposed regs provide that the acquisition of used property is eligible for bonus depreciation if the property wasn’t used by the taxpayer or a predecessor at any time prior to acquisition of the property. Property is treated as used by the taxpayer or a predecessor before acquisition only if the taxpayer or a predecessor had a depreciable interest in the property at any time before the acquisition, regardless of whether the taxpayer or predecessor actually claimed depreciation.

Businesses that lease property, therefore, can acquire that property at the end of the lease and qualify for bonus depreciation. If a business has a depreciable interest in improvements made to lease property and subsequently acquires the property, the unadjusted depreciable basis of the property that’s eligible for the additional first-year depreciation excludes the unadjusted depreciable basis attributable to the improvements.

If a business initially acquires a depreciable interest in a part of a property and later acquires an additional depreciable interest in it, the additional interest isn’t treated as being previously used by the business. If, however, the business holds a depreciable interest in a portion of a property, sells that portion or part of it, and then acquires a depreciable interest in another part of the same property, it’s treated as previously having a depreciable interest in the property, up to the amount of the part for which the business held a depreciable interest in the property presale.

Used property also must satisfy certain related party and carryover basis requirements, as well as certain cost requirements. The proposed regs include antiabuse provisions for members of a consolidated group, certain acquisitions in accordance with a series of related transactions, and syndication transactions. And they explain how the new bonus depreciation rules apply to a variety of transactions involving partnerships holding assets that are otherwise eligible for bonus depreciation (for example, used machinery or vehicles).

Date of acquisition

The TCJA states that property won’t be treated as acquired after the date on which a “written binding contract” is entered into for the acquisition. The proposed regs clarify that the closing date, delivery date or other such date is irrelevant when determining the date of acquisition — only the date the contract is entered into matters for this purpose.

Under the proposed regs, a written contract is binding if it’s enforceable under state law against a taxpayer (or a predecessor) and doesn’t limit damages to a specified amount. A contractual provision that limits damages to at least 5% of the total contract price won’t be treated as limiting damages to a specified amount.

A letter of intent for an acquisition isn’t a binding contact, according to the proposed regs. Further, supply agreements aren’t treated as written binding contracts until a taxpayer provides the amount and design specifications of the property.

The proposed regs eliminate the safe harbor for property produced under a contract. Such property is no longer treated as self-constructed property, so the date that the contract is entered into generally is the date of acquisition.

Actual self-constructed property isn’t subject to the written binding contract requirement. The acquisition rules for self-constructed property are met if the taxpayer begins manufacturing, constructing or producing the property after September 27, 2017.

The rules regarding the eligibility of acquired used property could have a significant impact on mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. For example, buyers might prefer to structure a transaction as an asset purchase rather than a stock acquisition to take advantage of bonus depreciation. Businesses also should review transactions that have closed but are subject to the new rules to ensure they achieve the optimal tax treatment.

Amount of the deduction

According to the proposed regs, the amount of the first-year depreciation deduction equals the applicable percentage of the property’s unadjusted depreciable basis. The unadjusted depreciable basis generally is limited to the property’s basis attributable to manufacture, construction or production of the property before January 1, 2027.

Plan carefully

Businesses that wish to take advantage of the new rules for fiscal tax years beginning in 2017 but ending in 2018 may have several bonus depreciation options, and amended returns may be advisable in some cases. We can help you make the most of the new rules for fiscal tax years beginning in 2017 and going forward.

Change management doesn’t have to be scary

Make your nonprofit’s accounting function more efficient

Tenancy-in-common: A versatile estate planning tool

Tax-free fringe benefits help small businesses and their employees

Businesses aren’t immune to tax identity theft

Keeping a king in the castle with a well-maintained cash reserve

2018 Q4 tax calendar: Key deadlines for businesses and other employers

3 reasons you should continue making lifetime gifts

Keep it SIMPLE: A tax-advantaged retirement plan solution for small businesses

IRS issues guidance on new bonus depreciation rules

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