Education, IRS

Comparing Income, Corporate, Capital Gains Tax Rates: 1916-2011

Leave a comment

I recently rediscovered a pretty fascinating chart I originally found a couple years back (when looking for holiday presents for my father — yes, I was born a nerd and came by it honestly), comparing various top tax rates through history.  It only contains data up through 2011, but I’m hopeful the author, Catherine Mulbrandon, will update it again at some point.  All of her graphics are pretty interesting — clear and to-the-point — and her Visualizing Economics blog is worth a visit whether you’re an economics nerd or a graphic design nerd.

Reminder: your marginal tax rate is the rate you pay on the “last dollar” you earn; but when you view the taxes you paid as a percentage of your income, your effective tax rate is less than your marginal rate, especially after you take into account the deductions and exemptions, i.e. income that is not subject to any tax.

Source: Comparing Income, Corporate, Capital Gains Tax Rates: 1916-2011 — Visualizing Economics

Tips

Small Business Grant Contest

Leave a comment

LendingTree is having a contest for small businesses where the prize is a $50,000 grant to the winning company — and while I don’t normally endorse or post about for-profit/ non-educational items, I recently had a client win one of these types of contests, and I couldn’t be happier for her or prouder.

So, I’m making the “share” and trying to get this out to as many small business owners as possible, since I recognize that it could be a huge benefit to a small business, and by extension, its surrounding community.

LendingTree is offering support in the form of a $50,000 grant to help one small business achieve even more success. Tell us about your business, how you would use the prize money and why your business deserves this grant for a chance to win. Opportunity is knocking!

Source: Small Business Grant Contest

Education, Tips

CPA Academy Webinar – Financing Sources for Small Business Owners

Leave a comment

Just a quick note about a FREE webinar coming up tomorrow (Tues, Dec 13) I just saw advertised on CPAacademy.org regarding financing sources for small business owners.  I’ve said it so many times: insufficient capital is one of the primary reasons for the failure of small businesses, and I’ve had too many clients fall prey to unscrupulous lenders that take advantage of their needy situation.

This may be one for both accountants and their clients to attend.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the pros and cons as well as lender requirements for the main types of financing.
  • Learn about financing options for start-ups, business owners with poor personal credit, and other challenging situations.
  • Help your clients prepare for financing and avoid expensive pitfalls.
  • Get free tools you can use to help your clients evaluate costs and make better borrowing decisions.

Source: CPA Academy

Education, QuickBooks Software, Software, Tips

QuickBooks Online Interface Overhaul

2 Comments

Our good friend Charlie Russell over at Accountex Report (formerly Sleeter) has helped us out once again by 1) warning us that QuickBooks Online is once again changing its interface and 2) letting us know what the changes are and how we’re likely to be affected and react.

His summary?  Meh, it’s fine — it’s not as major as the last time they did this, and it’s mostly being done to create consistency across all their online product platforms (which is a good thing).  His (and I couldn’t agree more) main complaint is that they need to keep these “redesigns” around for longer, allowing us to get used to them and become more efficient with our navigation and data entry.

The full article has lots of great screen shots and step-by-step info; I encourage a quick read (it’s only 2-pages long), as these changes are rolling out throughout the course of the month, and you’ll want to be on top of your game when doing financial reviews in January in anticipation of tax-time.

QuickBooks Online Interface Overhaul – Accountex Report

IRS, Tips

10 Year-End Tax-Planning Tips for Individuals

Leave a comment

It’s that time again!  Accounting Today releases its annual list… many of which are particularly smart planning techniques for tax savings.

Grant Thornton has released a collection of Year-End Tax Guides for 2016. Here are 10 of the most important 2016 tax-planning considerations for individuals.

1. Accelerate Deductions and Defer Income
2. Bunch Itemized Deductions
3. Make Up a Tax Shortfall with Increased Withholding
4. Leverage Retirement Account Tax Savings
5. Reconsider a Roth IRA Rollover
6. Get Your Charitable House in Order
7. Give Directly from an IRA
8. Zero out AMT
9. Don’t Squander Your Gift Tax Exclusion
10. Leverage Historically Low Interest Rates

Source: 10 Year-End Tax-Planning Tips for Individuals

Education, Tips

Podcasts for CPAs

Leave a comment

I wanted to share a short and sweet little article from the American Institute of CPAs on podcasts that are popular among “young CPAs” (I don’t know what their demographics are, or why they’d angle it this way, but I’m 44 and I love some of these):

Listen to This! – AICPA

I’m especially a fan of Steve Bragg’s publications and was glad to see that he’s got a regular podcast.

And of course, I want to plug John Garrett’s Green Apple Podcast — not only is it entertaining, but I was his first interviewee back when he started publishing episodes!  I think he’s about 50 podcasts in, and the insights just keep coming.

 

QuickBooks Software, Software, Tips

Access “QuickBooks Self-Employed” (QBSE) Clients from QBOA

Leave a comment

Big news for accountants using the QuickBooks Online Accountant program, from my favorite QB blogger, Charlie Russell:

Now you can access QuickBooks Self-Employed from QuickBooks Online Accountant. All your clients will be located in one centralized list.

However, an important warning — although you may have clients who signed up on their own for QuickBooks Self-Employed (in which case it’s obviously super-helpful to have them show up in your list of QBOA clients), QBSE is NOT a full-featured accounting program.  Furthermore, unlike the rest of the world of QuickBooks products (desktop and online), QBSE cannot be converted into a QuickBooks full-featured version of any of their accounting software.

This means that as accountants, we have a duty to warn clients and potential clients against this program.  The costs, time and trouble to “start over” with only summary info for prior years, or even higher costs, time and trouble to re-import transactional data into a version of QuickBooks that will work properly from an accounting perspective is not worth the cost-savings of starting with QBSE.

That said: for those clients who somehow already got themselves into this situation, at least now, we as accountants will be able to access their files with all of our other QBO client files.

More here, at the original article:

Access QuickBooks Self-Employed from QuickBooks Online Accountant – Accountex Report

Education, QuickBooks Software, Software, Tips

New QuickBooks Online Reporting – A Guide

Leave a comment

Okay, so Intuit says, “we improved reports to make them more professional looking and easier to customize.”  I am not a fan.  Any time I have to click more times to get to the data or the reports I need than I had to click previously, it’s NOT an improvement.

Nevertheless, onward.  The change is coming, and I’ve had a sneak preview for a while… I got the notice today that these reports are rolling out to my clients this week.  (You may already have them or it may be a while longer, as they tend to roll out changes in batches.)

I do, however, think that Intuit did a nice job with their guide to the new (and “improved”) reports — Improved QuickBooks reports • QuickBooks Online — complete with screen shots and step-by-step instructions (for things that should take you fewer steps; grrr).

But don’t blame me if you don’t like the new reports.  Blame Apple.  ;)

Accounting Services for Small Businesses