Rx for Itemizing Medical Expenses
Medical expenses can be costly — and they’re not always covered by insurance. But there may be a silver lining: You may be able to claim an itemized deduction for the amounts you pay for medical, dental and vision care, if you incur enough costs to exceed the applicable threshold for the tax year. Here are…
How Does Divorce Affect Social Security?
If you’re divorced, it’s possible to claim Social Security spousal and survivor benefits from your ex-spouse, and to keep the entire matter private. The Social Security Administration (SSA) will not inform your former spouse about the application or the payment of benefits. Gaining access to this benefit can provide an extra boost in income when it’s…
Avoid Premature IRA Splits Before a Divorce
If a couple is getting a divorce, transfers of cash and property between them generally have no immediate federal tax consequences. This general rule allows divorcing individuals to divide up cash, CDs, investments held in taxable accounts, real property, personal property, business ownership interests and other assets without owing anything to Uncle Sam. Such tax-free transfers…
Enhance Customers’ Phone Experience
It’s been a long road from Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876 to today’s voice recognition phone systems that make statements like: “If you want to discuss your bill, say one.” Some consider the telephone to be man’s greatest communication development. Other’s say it’s the Internet. And now, with voice recognition, there is a hybrid. Although…
Five Reasons to Move to the Cloud
Cloud computing is popular among businesses with good reason. Putting your business’s IT in the cloud eliminates the costs and complexity of purchasing, configuring, and managing hardware and software. Cloud providers create and use applications that offer safe storage of your company’s critical data in secure data centers maintained by IT professionals. These applications are available…
Retirement Account Catch-Up Contributions Can Add Up
Are you age 50 or older? If so, you can currently make extra “catch-up” contributions to certain types of tax-favored retirement accounts. Over time, these contributions can make a significant difference in your retirement-age wealth. What about tax reform? After President Trump and other lawmakers stated that they wouldn’t tinker with retirement plan contribution tax breaks,…
Survivors: Family Businesses That Last
The phrase “family business” makes some people automatically think of mom-and-pop stores in small towns. But as you probably know, family-operated companies include everything from husband-and-wife sole proprietorships to companies like Mars Inc., the candy bar and food product company that employs about 70,000 people. For a perspective of just where family business fits into the…
401k Administration: Hardship Distributions and Terminating a Plan
Question: Our company terminated its calendar-year 401(k) plan effective December 31, 2016, but will not make final plan distributions until the IRS issues a favorable determination on the plan’s termination. Should we file a final Form 5500 for the plan year in which the termination was effective (2016), or the plan year in which the final…
Handling Interest Expense on Loans to Inject Capital
There are instances when you can write off interest on personal loans used for business purposes, such as injecting capital into an S corporation, multi-member LLC, partnership or C corporation. But keep in mind that interest expenses must be classified into one of four categories (see box at the bottom of this article for details). Different…
Defaulting on Retirement Plan Loans Causes Taxable Distributions
Want to borrow money from your retirement plan? Not so fast. Retirement plan loans can be a viable way to get money in a crunch, but you need to follow the rules about repaying them. If you don’t, it could lead to unfavorable tax consequences, as two taxpayers recently learned the hard way in U.S. Tax…