Buy or Lease a Business Vehicle: Which Costs Less?

If you’re trying to decide between leasing and buying your next business vehicle, one question is probably foremost in your mind: Which option costs less? Unfortunately, comparing the costs of leasing and buying isn’t as simple as it looks. To do it right, you must consider not just out-of-pocket costs but also cash available, the […]

New FinCEN Filings Go into Effect on January 1

For existing businesses, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) goes into effect on January 1, 2024, and imposes a brand-new federal filing requirement on most corporations, limited liability companies, and limited partnerships and on certain other business entities. No later than December 31, 2024, all non-exempt business entities must file a beneficial owner information report (BOI […]

Should You Convert Your Personal Vehicle to Business Use?

Remember Mel Practess, the attorney you met last month who came out ahead by using his wife’s car for business? Once Mel and Sharpe, his wife, started using both cars, they had 73.7 percent business use of each car.1 Before their agreement to switch cars every week, Mel drove one car and achieved 93.3 percent […]

Why Some Business Owners Prefer Individual HSAs

Tax-favored Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) Are More Popular Than Ever One reason: when enacted, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) eliminated all two-or-more-employee, small-business health plans that reimbursed individually purchased health insurance. The alternatives chosen by most business owners with fewer than 50 employees were to offer either: No health coverage, or HSAs in some form [...]

12 Answers to Questions on Proving Expenses for Business Travel

Q&A 1: Corporation or proprietorship?   Question. Are the business travel documentation rules different if I operate my business as a corporation versus as a proprietorship? Answer. Yes and no. Not different. Regarding deductions for lodging, meals, or other travel expenses, the rules governing receipts, business reasons, and canceled checks are the same for corporations, proprietorships, individuals, and employees. Different. If you operate as a corporation, the corporation is a separate legal entity from you. You are an employee of that corporation. To get the best tax results, you need the corporation to reimburse you for the travel expenses, or have the [...]

IRS warns of new scam involving unclaimed refunds

The Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners are cautioning taxpayers and tax professionals to beware of a new scam in which fraudsters are sending out cardboard envelopes from a delivery service asking people to send photos and bank account information so they can receive an unclaimed tax refund. The envelope has a letter […]