Tax Tips

How to make sure the life insurance benefits your family will receive after your death and avoid the federal estate tax. Under the estate tax rules, insurance on your life will be included in your taxable estate if either:  Your estate is the beneficiary of the insurance proceeds, or  You possessed certain economic ownership rights (“incidents […]

At one time, there was relatively little confusion about IRAs because there was only one type available. Now, however, IRAs have proliferated—there are o the “traditional” IRA, which may be funded with o deductible o and/or nondeductible contributions, o  Roth IRA, o SEP-IRA, o and SIMPLE IRA. Some of these IRAs have similar features, but […]

S corporations the most suitable form of business for the new venture Here is an explanation of the reasons why. The biggest advantage of an S corporation over a partnership is that as S corporation shareholders you would not be personally liable for corporate debts. In order to receive this protection, it is important that […]

Reasonable Compensation How the IRS and Tax Court Assess S Corporation Officer/Shareholder/Owner Compensation S corps are pass-through entities, whereby the IRS does not tax income at the corporate level, but allows income to flow through directly to S corp shareholders. The result is that income is only taxed once on shareholders’ personal tax returns, eliminating […]

Using S corporations to reduce self-employment income o Income that you generate conducting your business as a sole proprietorship (or through a wholly-owned limited liability company (LLC)) is subject to both income tax and self-employment tax. The self-employment tax is imposed on 92.35% of self-employment income at a 12.4% rate for social security up to […]

Substantiating employee expense account and expense reimbursement arrangements. Q- 1. Do you have an expense account or expense reimbursement arrangement with your employer? A- A. You get a better tax result on your own income tax return if your expense account or reimbursement arrangement qualifies as an “accountable” plan. (See B, below) Under such a […]