Are you hiring new employees? If you live in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi North Carolina, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah or Virginia you are required to use e-verify as part of your hiring process. In addition Arkansas, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia have pending e-verify legislation. The US Supreme Court recently upheld Arizona’s law, which imposes harsh penalties on Arizona employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers [Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting No. 09–115], so there is no longer a question of whether or not you should if your state requires it. Read the rest of this entry »
E-Verify Overview: Which States? How To?
June 27th, 2011Woo Hoo, the IRS Increases Mileage Rate
June 23rd, 2011Do you use your car for your business or for work? If you keep good written records, the business use of your car can be a very nice business deduction, unreimbursed employee expense, or your employer may even reimburse you.
On January 1, 2011 the optional mileage rate was 51 cents per mile-that’s more than a dollar for every 2 miles you drive for business. In recognition of the increase in gas prices, the IRS announced they would increase the optional mileage rate to 55.5 cents per mile on July 1, 2011; normally they only adjust this rate once per year. Read the rest of this entry »
Hogs Will Be Slaughtered
June 20th, 2011S-corporations, sometime when you were setting up your business, you chose, or someone advised you to choose S-corporation as your business form. One advantage is they avoid the “double taxation” of the C-corporation; the government does not usually tax S-corporations. The S-corporation passes income through to you, a shareholder, and you pay the taxes on your share. Another advantage is that only part of the income passes through to you as self-employment income, reducing the amount of self-employment tax you pay. It is that second advantage where the audit risk lies. Get greedy and the IRS will slaughter you. Read the rest of this entry »
US Congress Will Punt-Legislative Update June 2011
June 17th, 2011Last year I spent a lot of time writing about how the US Congress had done nothing with respect to resolving tax issues. Why is it important for Congress to pass tax law? It is very hard to do tax planning before the end of the year, when you do not know what taxes you have to pay. In 2010, the extenders package, AKA the 2010 Tax Relief Act, finally passed and was signed on December 17 of 2010-which meant the average taxpayer had very little time to engage in tax planning for 2010. Furthermore many of the provisions in that act expire at the end of this year or the next. In otherwords the 111th Congress punted and left these issues to be resolved after the next presidential election. Why should the 112 Congress be any different? Read the rest of this entry »
1099-MISC For Dummies
June 17th, 2011I got a question from somebody who read my latest blog entry and she said she could barely understand it at all. I had no idea.
So… (cornet flourish sounds, “da tadada”) Introducing 1099-MISC for Dummies. If you are in business and pay other people for services, Form 1099-MISC & Form 1096 are probably “tax” Forms you should be filing. Why? Just like any other “tax” form there are penalties for not filing them. If you like living on the edge, and sneering at the tax man, you don’t have to read any further, this post is not for you. However if just seeing a letter from the IRS gives you the cold sweats, read on. Read the rest of this entry »
