5 Ways to Boost Deductions for Charitable Giving
The holiday season is fast approaching. It’s the time when people traditionally make gifts to charities. Generally, year-end donations increase the charitable deduction you can claim on the personal tax return you’ll file the next year. But 2018 is different from most previous tax years. From 2018 through 2025, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) nearly…
How To Recognize a Good Leader for Your Company
Traditional interviews, background checks, and clever “scenario” questions might help you turn up a good leader. But sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, you end up hiring a problem, and then struggling to get rid of him or her. Here are some characteristics of good leaders and bad, that may help you find the pearls…
Tax Considerations of Long-Term Care Insurance
The cost of long-term custodial care – including skilled nursing facilities, unskilled facilities, hospice and adult day care facilities – can be devastating to ordinary families. They can reach up to $100,000 per year and even higher in some areas for a semi-private room in a skilled care facility. What’s more, these expenses are usually not…
How to Approach Succession Planning
Does your organization have a succession plan in place? And, if it does, is it well documented? Some not-for-profits delay detailed succession planning, thinking of it as a project they’ll get to “someday.” But that’s a mistake. Like making future plans in your private life, creating a succession plan for your organization is a necessity. And…
Can an Attorney Be an Employee of a Client?
If a small business hires an attorney to do work, can the attorney be treated as an “employee” rather than an “independent contractor?” Most people would answer “independent contractor,” without any hesitation, but the outcome isn’t always so clear-cut. In fact, the employment status of one attorney was called into question in one case decided by…
Consider an Alternate Metric to Value Your Small Business
Would you use a complicated discounted cash flow analysis to estimate the value of a mom-and-pop restaurant? How about using a price-to-earnings multiple derived from publicly traded restaurant chains? Neither method seems appropriate for a small family-operated eatery. As this example illustrates, traditional valuation models don’t necessarily work for small businesses and professional practices. Instead, business…
Seven Steps for Responding to EEOC Complaints
It’s an employer’s nightmare: You are notified by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that a complaint has been lodged against the company. Many employers are facing this situation, according to EEOC statistics. The number of individuals filing discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims with the federal government has remained high in recent years (see right-hand box…
Tax Savings from Cost Segregation Studies Add Up for Businesses
Has your company invested in buildings this year to rent out or use for business purposes? Real estate investors have used cost segregation studies for many years to lower their tax bills. In a nutshell, these studies divide property into smaller parts, allowing for faster depreciation of certain parts of a building. Thanks to liberalized depreciation…
Does Your Buy-Sell Agreement Need Updating?
If you own a business and follow professional advice, you’ve likely established a buy-sell agreement in case you or a co-owner voluntarily or involuntarily leaves the company. Assuming this is true, remember that it’s not enough to draft an agreement and put it in a safe place. You need to review and perhaps revise the document…
Save Taxes While Controlling Employee Health Costs
If rising health care costs have sent your company searching for ways to reduce expenses, you should know there are alternatives to standard medical insurance plans. Your choices are not limited to either paying the higher costs yourself or transferring the burden to your employees. Tax-advantaged strategies are available which can mitigate the effect of rising…