by Leif Jensen | Aug 11, 2015 | General |
Last week I met with a client who had recommended us to one of their friends. I had written about this case when I first met with them. Upon review of the past tax returns, we believe that blatant fraud was incorporated into the preparation of both the business and...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 10, 2015 | General |
I recently met with a payroll processing sales person. She inquired as to how many zero balance S-Corps, did I process at the end of the year. I informed her that I did not do any. First there are a number of client whom handle their own payroll and I would not be...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 5, 2015 | General |
Remaining relevant is challenging. Whether you sell a product or a service the business environment in which you are working in is always in transition. For us as a CPA firm we have the changing tax laws, the FASB standards are constantly in flux. Report on a...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 4, 2015 | General |
Adoption of an automatic enrollment into a 401(k), has increased employee participation. This is bound to happen when they have no choice in the matter. But employers can also help improve participation and contribution levels in retirement plans by offering matching...
by Leif Jensen | Aug 3, 2015 | General |
Whoohoo! It seems that we as Americans are finally saving more. It just happens to not be in our employer-sponsored retirement plans. That is according to retirement market researcher Hearts & Wallets. According to the report the average annual household savings...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 27, 2015 | General |
How we got on the topic, I do not remember. But, I was having a discussion with banker and we got on the topic of bank robbery. I was joking that robbing a bank today would net you little to nothing. We no longer live in the days of John Dillinger. My banker stated...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 22, 2015 | General |
The independent contractor issue is getting more pressure and press for Uber, and many other companies. The Department of Labor is looking into the classification of independent contractor vs employees. The Department of Labor has rules in place and they are not new,...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 21, 2015 | General |
I have a client whom was late in filing their LLC return for a prior year. As part of our ongoing discussions I explained that there would be penalties for filing late. Below, I have included from the IRS’s website the calculations of these penalties: Late Filing of...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 20, 2015 | General |
It seems that times are definitely a changing… We are moving to the “Gig Economy”, the gig, or on-demand, economy is the new favorite business model that seems to be coming out of Silicon Valley these days. A few years ago there was a study by Intuit, in which they...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 15, 2015 | General |
Student loan debt continues to be a financial burden for more than just millennials. It seems that this problem is becoming a huge and growing problem for many aging Americans who are near or in retirement. According to the NY Fed, student loan balances among...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 14, 2015 | General |
This year, taxpayer identity theft took a maliciously clever turn and it seems that the IRS assisted them in this endeavor. The phony tax returns that were filed appeared to be very similar to the taxpayers’ previous years’ returns. So close that the standard pattern...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 13, 2015 | General |
We all know that the cost of college has been increasing significantly more that the cost of inflation. It seems that the current average cost of attending a four-year private university is now nearly $42,500 per year, triple the price tag in 1990. This is the...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 8, 2015 | General |
The rich or not-so-rich, share the common concern of running out of money in retirement. This seems to be a major concern for 57% of clients, according to results of an AICPA Personal Financial Planning Trends Survey . There are high levels of concern over adequate...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 7, 2015 | General |
It seems that the US had more open jobs in April than at any time in the past 15 years, according to the most recent data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The shortage of talent appears to be most evident at midsize US companies, according to a Deloitte news...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 6, 2015 | General |
A survey conducted last month by Bankrate, found that in addition to the 29 percent of Americans who have no savings, another 21 percent have less than three months worth of expenses saved. Based upon my experience, there are a large percentage of the top 10% of...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 1, 2015 | General |
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a new round of steps to better protect against identity theft and fraud before the 2016 tax-filing season. The measures are an effort to reassure taxpayers following a data breach that exposed 100,000 taxpayers’ data....
by Leif Jensen | Jun 29, 2015 | General |
I was listening to “Under the Influence” again, and the podcast was discussing branding. Since I had a couple of appointments last week, I thought I would see if they were following the recommendations from the podcast. What was stressed was the need for a consistent...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 24, 2015 | General |
There is always the question in the back of job seekers minds as to what they can do to make themselves standout from the crowd. Especially if you are a new grad and are looking for that first job, standing out is more difficult. One suggestion of what not to do is...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 23, 2015 | General |
We recently had a situation where the client misunderstood the concept behind estimated payments. With this situation the client thought that they were retroactive payments and not prospective payments. We explained that there had been a tax liability due for 2014...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 22, 2015 | General |
You have an employee who has just received a new job opportunity from your largest and nearest competitor. Do you make them a counter offer to stay? Is the knowledge to be lost worth a counter offer? Seventy-eight percent of CFOs do not like the idea of extending...
