by Leif Jensen | May 30, 2017 | General |
Employers must start making decisions on health care plans for 2018 with the knowledge that, for now at least, Obamacare is still the law of the land. The law includes the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost plans, a 40% excise tax on plans costing at least...
by Leif Jensen | May 29, 2017 | General |
In my dealing with clients the subject of employees comes up a lot. Beyond the basic payroll and HR components employees have a tremendous impact on your business. I have clients who view their employees as expenses plain and simple. They know that every...
by Leif Jensen | May 25, 2017 | General |
Granted I have written on this topic before, but it now looks like Edward S. Lampert has Sears swirling th drain. The stock is trading is trading below $8 per share. But apparently the media is too blame and not the incompetency’s of Lambert. Believing...
by Leif Jensen | May 24, 2017 | General |
I was watching the TV show “Billions” specifically the episode “Yumtime”. The main character Axelrod, bought a 4.9% stake in a publically traded business. This business was being run by the third generation of the family. Axelrod was dissatisfied by the...
by Leif Jensen | May 23, 2017 | General |
During my career I have run into entrepreneurs that fall into roughly five different categories. First there are those who have their own ideas and plan to build their business from the ground up. This is the way I started my business. The second...
by Leif Jensen | May 22, 2017 | General |
About a month ago I was delivering a client’s return to the Shiller Park offices of the IRS. I was doing this because the client had not filed corporate of personal returns for a few years and I wanted to ensure that the first years was filed immediately upon...
by Leif Jensen | May 17, 2017 | Case Study |
While networking, I have come across a few entrepreneurs that had businesses and didn’t have businesses. Yes, I know clear as mud. What they had set up were passive businesses in which the success of the business was put into the hands of others to be the...
by Leif Jensen | May 17, 2017 | General |
I have a client experiencing difficulties with their bank. Their relationship to their bank was testy at times, but then the bank was absorbed by another and things just went from bad to worse. The bank now insists on a 48 hour hold on all deposits, even if...
by Leif Jensen | May 16, 2017 | General |
S corporation owners who guarantee the firm’s loans don’t get a tax break: Guarantees don’t boost their tax basis in the firm. S company shareholders can deduct their share of corporate losses only up to their investment in the company, including advances made...
by Leif Jensen | May 15, 2017 | General |
The IRS had to pay a penalty for disclosing a couple’s tax information. In spite of minimal damages the Service needed pay only $1,000 to each of them. After the IRS audited the couple, an employee unintentionally mailed pages of the report detailing the...
by Leif Jensen | May 10, 2017 | General |
S corporation shareholders may soon be getting a form to assist in figuring their tax basis. Owners of S corporations can deduct losses only up to their stock basis and loans they make to the firm. But the IRS knows that taxpayer compliance in this area is...
by Leif Jensen | May 9, 2017 | General |
I have a client who had an employee leave because they thought the office was too distracting. This is a creative company who has movies or music playing constantly in the background. While apparently finding this too distracting the employee apparently ignored this...
by Leif Jensen | May 8, 2017 | General |
This year we were hired to prepare the final return for an investment club. Once hired for the investment club return, we were asked by a couple members to prepare their individual returns, we offered to do any members personal return for our minimum fee. There were...
by Leif Jensen | May 3, 2017 | General |
In 2014 when Oculus VR was sold to Facebook for $2 billion, some asked: What if the people who backed the virtual-reality startup two years earlier on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter had received shares instead of T-shirts or VR headsets? The answer to the question...
by Leif Jensen | May 2, 2017 | General |
“The Fed has long known most of the $100 bills aren’t in America. It doesn’t take great insight to realize they are being used to finance illicit activities,” Alan Blinder, Princeton University economist and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, said in an...
by Leif Jensen | May 1, 2017 | General |
It has been deemed that IRS agents cannot proceed with a levy that creates economic hardship. But this rule does not apply to levies against corporations, according to the the Tax Court. After a corporation that ran a nursing home did not pay its quarterly...
by Leif Jensen | Apr 26, 2017 | General |
A firm that runs a limousine transportation business recently received bad news from IRS. It found out that it was liable for payroll taxes that were not paid by an employee leasing company. The taxpayer leased its workforce from the leasing company and...
by Leif Jensen | Apr 25, 2017 | General |
With the new boxes on Form 1098, the IRS is collecting more data on home mortgage interest. Lenders must now report the amount of principal outstanding at the start of the year, the mortgage origination date and the address of the property securing the loan....
by Leif Jensen | Apr 24, 2017 | General |
I was having a discussion with one of my kids and somehow we got onto the topic of taxes. Since this was in the middle of tax season I don’t think I brought it up. It may have stemmed from a news story on the radio. But my some was taking the stance that the...
by Leif Jensen | Apr 12, 2017 | General |
Costco’s returns have been weaker lately, so they are increasing their membership fee to compensate. The analysts are ecstatic; they love Costco more than Sam’s Club. I have a client that raves about the superiority of Costco verses Sam’s while only having a...
