Elron Naranja, Author at Cook CPA Group

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5 Strategic Accounting Tips for Mid-Sized Businesses

five straregi accounting tips for mid size businesses

As a mid-sized business, you know how difficult it can be to stay on top of your accounting. With employees to manage, fires to put out, and a healthy work-life balance to maintain, making time to keep on top of your accounting practices is more complicated than ever.

As you grow your company and employee base, staying on top of your accounting operations becomes increasingly important. This post will guide you through five strategic accounting tips your mid-sized business can use today, including:

Maintaining business records
Defining an accounting strategy
Automating accounting practices
Leveraging business tax credits
Outsourcing your accounting practice

Strategic Accounting Tip #1: Maintain Updated Business Records

The first strategic accounting tip for your mid-sized business is to maintain accurate and updated business records. Recordkeeping is an essential function of any business and a critical component of complying with IRS accounting requirements. There are three main accounting areas to pay particular attention to as you strive to maintain accurate business records.

Gross income

The most straightforward business recordkeeping responsibility is tracking gross receipts or gross income. This is the income your business generates. Make sure to maintain accurate records of sales in the form of deposit receipts from both credit card and cash sales, any invoices

Expenses

Expenses are all the costs you incur running your business, including payments and transfers. Consider using accounting software that automatically keeps track of this type of business record for easy accounting during tax season.

Assets

Calculating the annual depreciation of your business fixed assets is an important recordkeeping practice. Ensure you maintain original asset documents, including purchase and sales receipts, as well as any proof of payment documents to make your business accounting run as smoothly as possible.

Strategic Accounting Tip #2: Decide on Your Accounting Strategy and Stick With It

Once you have a handle on your recordkeeping habits, the next strategic accounting tip your mid-sized business should leverage is deciding on one accounting practice and sticking with it. Choosing between accrual accounting and cash basis accounting is a matter of preference.

While cash basis accounting tends to be easier for small and mid-sized businesses, accrual accounting is used most often.

The difference between the methods comes down to the way expenses are deducted. In cash basis accounting, revenue is documented as soon as payment is received. Conversely, accrual accounting records revenue when the product or service is delivered.

At Cook CPA Group, we recommend your business align with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) by using the accrual accounting method. In addition to being the most common accounting method for mid-sized businesses, accrual accounting provides a general overview snapshot of your business. This can be very helpful in determining the financial health of your business.

Strategic Accounting Tip #3: Automate Accounting Practices

You may reach a point in your mid-sized business where manual accounting practices are no longer efficient or productive for your team. Automating basic accounting practices for your business is a strategic tip you can leverage today.

Finding the appropriate accounting software for your business can be challenging, but once you select and install it, keeping your financial books in order is a breeze. To determine the right software or accounting automation plan for you, consider which accounting processes you can automate.

You may need to consider your company’s existing technology and the necessary training to ensure your staff has the know-how to use automation software. It’s also important to involve your team in the automation process. Make sure the entire team knows expectations for recordkeeping and basic troubleshooting processes.

Consider automating these accounting practices to keep your company’s finances running like clockwork:

Accounts payable
Accounts receivable
Payroll
Credit card and bank statements
Account and statement reconciliation
Routine banking tasks like transfers and monthly payments
Financial reporting and tax compliance functions

Automation for your accounting tasks is one of the best steps you can take for your mid-sized business. Stop wasting precious time and overcome year-end hassles by automizing your business accounting process today.

Strategic Accounting Tip #4: Leverage Business Tax Deductions

As a mid-sized business owner, you’re no stranger to tax deductions. And while it’s easier to put off recording those business deductions until right before tax season, our recommendation is to figure out the deductions you can leverage before tax season.

There are plenty of tax deductions your mid-sized company can take advantage of to reduce your tax burden. The trick is to ensure your strategy for keeping the appropriate accounting records for each business expense.

The most common business tax deductions your mid-sized business can leverage are labor costs and operating expenses. Payroll and administrative expenses to the equipment you use on a daily basis are common tax deductions you’re likely already aware of.

However, other business expenses like marketing and advertising can be claimed on your tax form as deductible expenses so long as you retain the appropriate records. Another deductible your mid-sized company may not think to leverage is the payment for professional services. Payments to accountants, lawyers, and even professional membership networks can and should be leveraged deductions at tax time.

With the right accounting practices in place, you can appropriately document and justify these business expenses to save big this tax year.

Strategic Accounting Tip #5: Outsource Accounting

Outsourcing your accounting tasks to a professional accounting group is a great way to save time and an easy way to save your company money. Rather than hiring and training new employees to perform basic accounting functions, outsource your business accounting functions to a trusted professional.

Remember, hiring a professional service provider like an accountant to help with business tax is an eligible deduction come tax time! Save yourself the headache of getting your financial records in order and filing your taxes the right way.

Expert business accountants like Cook CPA Group can help you file federal corporate taxes and save you money on your tax bill. With decades of professional accounting experience, we can efficiently and accurately help you file your mid-sized company’s federal corporate tax.

Schedule a free consultation today if you’re ready to leave the important accounting functions to the pros.

9 Lesser Known Tax Write-Offs for LLCs and S-Corps

As the owner of an LLC or S-Corp, paying less money in taxes means you have more to spend on building your business to new highs. The more deductions your small business can take at tax time, the lower your tax bill will be.

While you may be aware of a few more common tax deductions your LLC or S-Corp can take this tax season, we’re sharing a list of lesser-known small business deductions you can use on your tax return to lower your taxable profit for the year.

Self-Employment Tax
First-Year Start-up Costs
Training and Education Costs
Professional Services Fees
Pass-through Entity Deduction
Independent Contractor Deduction
Charitable Contributions and Gifts
Association and Membership Dues
Retirement Contributions

Self-Employment Tax

The first tax deduction you should take advantage of this tax season is the self-employment deduction tax. Every year, you can claim 50% of what you pay in self-employment tax as a federal income tax deduction. These are Social Security and Medicare taxes you pay as a self-employed citizen.

Deducting the employer-equivalent portion of this tax is done with your adjusted gross income and only affects your overall income tax.

To read more about eligibility requirements, check out this helpful IRS website.

First-Year Startup Costs

The first year in business is one of the toughest. Luckily, there are tax advantages for your start-up LLC or S-Corp you should know.

Start-up costs, as defined by the IRS, are expenses your LLC or S-Corp paid or incurred for creating your business or researching the creation or acquisition of your business. To be eligible for this deduction, your LLC or S-Corp must meet both of these requirements:

You can deduct the expense if you paid or incurred the cost to operate an existing business if it is in the same field as the business entered into.
The expense is something you paid for or incurred before your business began.

To see a list of eligible start-up costs, visit this page.

Training and Education Costs

Building a successful small business requires constant learning and growth. Your LLC and S-Corp may save money this tax season by deducting the cost of business-related training and education.

Eligible training and education expenses must:

Maintain or improve job-related skills
Be required by law to keep your current salary, status, or job.

Note that the training you take cannot be part of a program that educates or trains you for a new business. All training, certifications, and education programs must enhance your current trade or business.

Visit the IRS guide on the topic for more information on filing requirements.

Professional Services Fees

Running a business often means hiring and engaging with professional service providers to help keep daily operations running smoothly.

Your LLC or S-Corp can deduct fees paid to accountants, lawyers, consultants, and other service professionals. However, the expenses must be directly related to your current business and not for work to acquire business assets.

Additionally, you can deduct the cost of hiring tax professionals like Cook CPA Group to prepare for and file your LLC and S-Corp business taxes. Save money on your small business taxes this year by contacting us today.

Pass-Through Entity Deduction

Pass-through entities, like your LLC or S-Corp, are uniquely qualified for up to a 20% deduction on net business income from federal income taxes. There are some limitations, including:

Your taxable income
The type of trade or business
The amount of W-2 wages paid
Unadjusted basis immediately after acquisition of any qualified property held by the business

If you are interested in reading more about what taxable income includes, please see this IRS article for a detailed breakdown.

Independent Contractor Deduction

With the upswing in workers taking to freelancing or independent contractor work, it’s only natural that your LLC or S-Corp hire a nonemployee to perform services for your business. If your business hired an independent contractor, the expense is deductible from your year-end taxes.

For more information on deducting independent contractor expenses, read our recent blog post, How to Account for Independent Contractors in Your Business Taxes.

Charitable Contributions and Gifts

Your LLC or S-Corp can deduct qualified charitable contributions if they are in the form of cash contributions. Otherwise, this deduction is more advantageous for an individual come tax time.

That being said, any expenses your LLC or S-Corp incurs for business gifts can and should be deducted. Exceptions to this deduction include:

Business gifts of more than $25 for every direct or indirect gift
Gifts expenses that include any incidental costs (like packaging and mailing)
Gifts with a permanent imprint of the company’s name
Gifts meant for wide distribution, such as pens, bags, and cases

For more information on exceptions, read IRS Publication 535.

Association and Membership Dues

Many small businesses are not aware that the IRS allows tax deductions for membership or association dues that are required or directly related to your business.

For example, if you join your local Chamber of Commerce or pay dues for a similar business-related association, your LLC or S-Corp can claim the fee as a deduction.

These expenses can be claimed on your Schedule C form. Reach out to us today to ensure you never pay more than you have to.

Retirement Contributions

Saving for future financial needs is more important than ever. Make sure your LLC or S-Corp takes advantage of the retirement contributions deduction.

The IRS outlines a special rule you should use to calculate retirement contributions for yourself as a self-employed individual. Essentially, your retirement plan contribution is calculated based on compensation. To calculate this plan compensation, you should:

Deduct a portion of your self-employment tax, and
The amount of your retirement plan contribution

Once you have that number, you’ll calculate your own contribution and deduction.

Head over to the IRS’s guide on Calculation Your Own Retirement-Plan Contribution and Deduction, for a detailed overview of how to calculate your retirement contribution deduction

If you are interested in paying fewer taxes this tax season for your LLC or S-Corp, book a call with us today. Our team of expert accountants has decades of experience filing taxes and saving money for LLCs and S-Corps, and we’d be happy to help you take advantage of these lesser-known deductions!

90 90 90 Rule

This is the final series with Ed Cotney as he concludes with an in-depth discussion of the IRA rules to consider other approaches to address required minimum distributions.

If you have an IRA or 401k and live to be age 90, and if all you do is take the required minimum distributions out once you turn 72, chances are you’re still going to have 90% of your IRA intact. So if you have a million-dollar IRA today and you’re 72 years old, chances are when you die, about $900,000 will still be in your IRA. Hence the 90 90 90 rule.

2020 Inherited IRA Distribution Rules and Risks of the 10-year rule

Giving It All At Once

Proceeds will be distributed all at once when you die. This will go on top of your children’s earned income resulting in a higher tax bracket.

10 Year Rule

The kids can let the money stay in the IRA for up to 10 years, and they just have to fully take out the inherited IRA after you die within ten years. There’s some risk exposure with this. The Kids have the right to take out their portion at any given time within the ten years after you die, and they will need to file a 1099r form.

If we do this ten-year rule, while the money is in the 10-year stretch rule; you need to ensure your kids don’t get enough bankruptcy or judgment. If one child does, they could lose the inherited IRA and could even pay a tax bill. You can check the Clark V. Ramaker Case as an example.

A Story Of How Converting IRA To CRUT Helps A Widowed Spouse

Tim and Susan want to transfer their wealth when they’re dying, their children free from tax, safe from lawsuits, and safe from creditors and predators. Tim passed away, and Susan’s age now is 80.

They have four kids, Susan has a house worth four hundred thousand dollars, and they have cash of $400,000, and Susan and Tim’s combined IRAs are $800,000.

The 1st kid, Mike, is a successful doctor and has a wonderful job. The 2nd daughter, Mary, didn’t marry very well. In fact, after Tim dies, his husband says, “I can’t wait for your mom to croak. This way, we can go buy a new truck and a bass boat”.

The 3rd son, Ed, is in a rocky third marriage, but he’s good with money. He’s good-looking too. The last son, Dan, is not good with money, is divorced, and looking for work.

Susan’s concerned that Dan will just waste his inheritance money and have to borrow from his siblings.

Taxes Issues Upon Death Of Susan

House – No tax, because of Step up in basis
Cash – No tax, because of Step up in basis
IRA/401K – Will have an Ordinary Income Tax

How The Charitable Trust Come In-Play

Calculating the total value of the asset, we got $1,600,000. We know that the non-ira assets, the house, and the cash will go to the children with zero tax, and the estate plan says that when Tim and Susan die, the $800,000 IRA goes in four equal distributions to the kids.

When Susan dies, the $800,000 will go to a charitable trust. This trust is designed to be a 20-year income payout to the four children using a very conservative number of 5.3%. We’re going to distribute $42,000 divided by four, so each child will get about $10,000 to $11,000 for the next 20 years. In total, we’re going to distribute out $896,000 of taxable income to the kids.

Now, here’s what’s cool about this strategy. This $800,000 has a high degree of asset protection from judgment, creditors, and predators. So, for example, in year 4, after Susan dies, Brother Dan gets into a divorce. He is receiving an income stream from the charitable trust but can’t take any money from it—that way, protecting himself.

And for Mike, the doctor, this is a smart deal too. It’s not a question of will Mike be in a lawsuit as a doctor. It’s a question of how many lawsuits he will be in during the rest of his life. So the last thing he needs to get is something that doesn’t have some form of creditor protection.

The last benefit from this is at the end of 20 years, after this charitable trust has paid out nearly $900,000 to the kids, almost $900,000 will go to her designated church.

Takeaway

This is not a multi-million dollar Warren Buffett strategy. This strategy works for anybody with at least $500,000 in qualified money, like a traditional IRA or 401k. This is a strategy where using a charitable trust provides a beautiful income stream to the kids and a beautiful gift to your designated charity.

There’s nothing severely advanced or complex here. You may have to spend a little bit of money for the lawyers to draft this, but this blows the doors of leaving an inherited IRA to a child so that they can take the money out over ten years at some point. By using charitable trust, we are making money off the IRS.

Charitable Tax Harvesting

The next video is part two of advanced tax planning options as this topic covers how to use charitable deductions to minimize capital gains. Please feel free to watch the video or read the transcript.

The Government Confiscatory Tax System

We all know that we live in a confiscatory tax system. We make money from income capital gains, and we know that we get the keep a part of it and that we get to be mandatory donors to the IRS and franchise tax board charities.

We live in a philanthropic confiscatory tax system where depending on how much money you make, you may pay more or less, but a portion of whatever you’re doing will support the IRS.

What We Don’t Know

60% of our income tax is optional
100% of long-term capital gains tax can be optional
100% of estate tax is optional

How Do You Pay Less Tax?

No tool makes it work for everybody and everything. But generally, the three main things that can help you pay less tax are insurance, business or trust, and a charity. Effective tax planning usually involves these three different things working together to create optimized opportunities.

Question: What is the maximum amount of money or assets a person can donate to a charity each year?

Answer: No Limit!

Maximum Charitable Adjusted Gross Income Deduction Rules

Schedule A, Line 11 – Cash= 60% (Can be 100% as of 2022 because of the Secure Act)

Schedule A, Line 12 – Appreciated Assets(Eg. Stocks and Real Estate) = 30%

If your adjusted income this year is $100,000, the most you can claim as a charitable deduction for cash under most circumstances usually is sixty percent or sixty thousand dollars.

If you give up to 60,000 to charity and claim it as a gift, you have reduced your adjusted gross income from 100,000 down to a 40,000 tax event. In doing so, you have probably not only reduced your taxable AGI, but you may have a lower tax rate. You can drop down one or two thresholds to get you into a more favorable income tax deduction

Example of using charity for people in 50% tax Bracket

If you have a $1,000,000 AGI, normally, you will be in a 50% tax bracket and have to pay 50% tax to the IRS. That means $500,000 goes to your tax, and you take home $500,000. But if you decide to gift $50,000 in cash to your IRS-approved charity, you can save $25,000.

This is how it works. Now that you gift $50,000 to a charity, you can include that in your Schedule A, Line 11. By doing so, you can get a $25,000 tax deduction. Your current AGI now becomes $950,000; you only have to pay $475,000 of your tax and used the $25,000 tax deduction.

Income and Captain Gains Tax Rescue Play

Now, let’s make this more interesting. What if five years ago, you had $40,000 burning a hole in your pocket. You went out to your financial planner to buy four positions for $10,000 a piece. That will be your basis, after-tax money.

Two of those positions did really well, and we call them racehorses. One of these positions started out pretty good, and then about two years down the road becomes flatlined. It grew to $50,000 in value, but for the last three years, it’s been doing nothing. Technically, you have lost an opportunity cost in this case. We call that one a donkey. The last position that you bought is hanging on for his dear life. It’s still worth $10,000, but you lost on opportunity cost.

What if you gave the $50,000 donkey to a charity? If you tried to sell the $50,000 stock and gain $40,000, you’re going to pay tax. Well, let’s think a little bit differently. So if you give the $50,000 as a block of stock that has a basis of $10,000 to a charity, technically, the charity’s going to turn it around and sell it. The charity has the same net effect.

If your charity doesn’t have a brokerage account, tell them to open up one. They’re not making it easy for donors to donate by not having one. So you better ask them to have one.

So you tell your financial planner to give the $50,000 value of the stock to the charity. The Charity converted that stock into cash. You get rid of the donkeys that are going to cost you money if you sell them, and you get $15,000 of money off the IRS. You may be confused, but let’s check out the image below.

On the left side, it shows you gave $50,000 of cash and bought you $25,000 off the tax statement. On the right side, you gave a charity $50,000 of stock that had a basis of $10,000. Now you’re in a 50% tax bracket on the tax form.

On the tax form, it’s the same. It’s the same deduction on the tax form except for one thing. Notice the basis here. In this case, $10,000 of basis bought you $25,000 of tax savings. Now, that’s $15,000 money you made off the IRS.

Conclusion

Overall, first, determine if you have highly appreciated poorly performing assets. You may want to consider making money off the IRS while still accomplishing your philanthropic objective.

At an early age, most of us were taught just to give cash to charity, and that’s all we’ve ever been doing. If you like making money off the IRS and still want to help your chosen charity, you may want to look at this concept.

Charitable Trust Tax Planning

building and operating business tax exit play

This is part one of a video series discussing various advanced tax planning concepts. The majority of this discussion covers charitable remainder trusts. Feel feel to watch the video or read the transcript.

John And Mary Smith likes to sell their 11 million dollar business. The total value of the assets (Business and Commercial Building) is around 11 Million Dollars. If they do nothing, their tax with the business will cost them around $1,650,000.000 and $2,000,000 for the commercial building. They go home with 7.35 Million, and the IRS goes home with 3.65 Million.

Using Charitable Trust

A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust. A charitable trust is a tool that has two jobs. One, to give you an income stream normally for life, and when you and your spouse die, whatever is left in that trust goes to the charitable structures you like. This could be Red Cross, Salvation Army, or whatever charity comes to mind.

We put the building in this charitable trust. This charitable trust is a tax-exempt irrevocable trust. By doing this, we bypass all the capital gains and recapture tax. So, in this case, if they put a 5.5 million dollar highly appreciated building into a charitable trust, there’s no tax. Another benefit is that the IRS is going to give them a charitable income tax deduction, in this case, 1.65 Million Dollars.

So if they sell the business and donate that building into the charitable trust, they’re almost going to be zero tax. It may take them a couple of years as far as tax returns to enjoy all these benefits, but it boils down to higher annual income.

Now you may say, that their kids aren’t getting the value of that building when they die. Then, let’s just use some money to buy a life insurance policy to replace that value. In effect, the IRS just paid for the life insurance policy.

This strategy is not new. It’s just new to some people or even you. So when you hear people talking about charitable tax planning, those are the people who have figured out that there’s a way that we can do more good for everybody involved and put a lot of money in the hands of a charitable organization.

We’ve done several strategies now on the death of John and Mary. We’ve done seven million dollars going to charity. We replace the value going to the charity using life insurance. The life insurance all goes tax-free, assuming the law doesn’t change in respect to step up in basis rules. We’ve increased the income to 159,000 a year for the rest of their life.