Archive for Tax Planning

It’s Tax Time! Are You Ready?

If you’re like most taxpayers, you find yourself with an ominous stack of “homework” around TAX TIME! Pulling together the records for your tax appointment is never easy, but the effort usually pays off in the extra tax you save! When you arrive at your appointment fully prepared, you’ll have more time to:

• Consider every possible legal deduction;
• Evaluate which income reporting and deductions are best suited to your situation;
• Explore current law changes that affect your tax status;
• Talk about tax-planning alternatives that could reduce your future tax liability.

Choosing Your Best Alternatives

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Written by | Posted in Individual • IRS • Tax Deductions • Tax Planning • Tax Tips

Why Choosing Married Filing Jointly Might Not Be Your Best Option

Most married taxpayers automatically tend to choose the Married Filing Jointly filing status, because they enjoy being taxed at the lowest rate, and also because there are certain tax breaks they might not be entitled to if they were to file separate returns. This, however, might not always be a wise decision.

If you and your spouse each have income, it might be wise to figure your taxes both on a joint return and on separate returns, and then choose the filing status that gives you the lower combined tax. Generally, you will pay more combined tax on separate returns than you would on a joint return, because the tax rate is higher for the MFS filing status. However, if both you and your spouse are high earners; and both of you also have large deductions, there may be a possibility that filing MFS could result in a lower tax bill, as Read More

Written by | Posted in Individual • IRS • Tax Planning

Ensuring Financial Success For Your Business

Can you point your company in the direction of financial success, step on the gas, and then sit back and wait to arrive at your destination?

Not quite. You can’t let your business run on autopilot and expect good results. Any business owner knows you need to make numerous adjustments along the way – decisions about pricing, hiring, investments, and so on.

So, how do you handle the array of questions facing you? One way is through cost accounting.

Cost Accounting Helps You Make Informed Decisions

Cost accounting reports determines the various costs associated with running Read More

Written by | Posted in Small Business • Tax Planning • Tax Tips

Tax Changes For 2015: A Checklist

It’s been a few months, but “Welcome 2015!” As the new year rolls around, it’s always a sure bet that there will be changes to current tax law and 2015 is no different. From health savings accounts to retirement contributions and standard deductions, here’s a checklist of tax changes to help you plan the year ahead.

Individuals

For 2015, more than 40 tax provisions are affected by inflation adjustments, including personal exemptions, AMT exemption amounts, and foreign earned income exclusion, as well as most retirement contribution limits.

For 2015, the tax rate structure, which ranges from 10 to 39.6 percent, remains the Read More

Written by | Posted in Individual • Tax Planning

Does Together Forever Include Tax Filing, Too?

No one ever said, “I feel closer to my spouse because we file taxes together.” Just the opposite – talking about money seems to ignite far more arguments than it puts out.

It’s a bit radical food for thought, but here are a few reasons why you might want to say “Sweetheart, let’s file separately this year.”

Liability

Much as you love your partner in crime, you don’t want to be handcuffed to their mistakes or oversights. Filing separately ensures that you aren’t shackled to your spouse’s tax evasion issues, and thus have to owe on their behalf. (If you’re already in this pickle, don’t hesitate to meet on TaxConnections – we help innocent spouses!) Read More

Written by | Posted in Income Tax • Tax Deductions • Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes • Tax Planning

Regulation 105 Withholding Tax For Services In Canada

Regulation 105 Withholding Tax for Services Rendered by Non-Resident

Do you engage foreign individual or company (collectively referred to as “non-resident person”) as independent contractor to provide services in Canada?  Are you the non-resident person providing independent contractor services in Canada?  If you answer yes to either question, do you know that payments made in respect of services rendered in Canada by non-residents are subject to Regulation 105 withholding at a rate of 15%?  There is an additional 9% withholding if the services are rendered in the province of Quebec by non-residents.  These withholding requirements simply act to ensure that non-resident recipients of the service payments pay any Canadian income tax duly owing. Read More

Written by | Posted in Canada • Corporate • Income Tax • Individual • International • Tax Planning • Tax Tips

How IRS Seizures Work

If you or your child has ever played the game “Sims”, then you know what happens when you fail to pay your bills on time. The Repo man comes and zaps your couch into nonexistence with a laser gun! It’s a traumatic moment for your Sims, but one that can be rectified with time and a few more Simoleons (Sim currency). IRS seizures, or liens, don’t work quite the same way of course, but the end result is similar: They will take what they are owed. How can you stop a tax seizure? First, let’s look at the pre-seizure process.

The IRS has a three-step process to ensure that you are adequately notified that they intend to seize your property and/or pay. This is intended to allow you to appeal or contest the tax levy. You’ll receive a “Notice of Demand for Payment,” a “Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing,” and then if you don’t respond, the IRS can Read More

Written by | Posted in IRS • Tax Planning

The Export Disc Corporation (IC-DISC): Computer Software And Internet Sales And Licenses – Part 8 (Final)

Lease and Rental Source of Income

Under the Software Regulations, income derived from the rental of a copyrighted article is sourced under Section 861(a)(4) and 862(a)(4).  As a general rule, rents and royalties are sourced to the place where the leased or licensed property is located, or where the lessee or licensee uses, or is entitled to use the property.

Leased property is used where it is physically located at the time of its use by the lessee. Therefore a computer program copy that is “rented” under a limited duration license should be considered to be used at the place where the computer that hosts the program is physically located while the lessee uses the program. If the copy resides on the lessee’s Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Planning • Tax Tips

The Export Disc Corporation (IC-DISC): Computer Software And Internet Sales And Licenses – Part 7

Partial Transfer of a Copyright Article: A Lease

If less than all of the benefits and burdens associated with a copyrighted article have passed to the transferee, the Software Regulations treat the transaction as a lease. Copyright articles can be leased as well as sold. Computer programs do not involve the risk of physical deterioration or physical destruction but they do have the risk of technological obsolescence. If this risk is assumed by the transferee, generally through a transaction in which the transferee makes a single payment in return for the right to use the program copy in perpetuity, then the transferee has assumed the risk of obsolescence and should be treated as the owner of the program copy. Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Planning • Tax Tips

The Export Disc Corporation (IC-DISC): Computer Software And Internet Sales And Licenses – Part 6

Application of the Title Passage Rule

As described in Part 5, the source of income generated by the sale or exchange of a copyrighted article often depends upon whether the sale took place within or without the United States. The place of sale is determined under the title passage rule. The Software Regulations recognizes that typical license agreements do not refer to a transfer of property and an electronic transfer is generally not accompanied by the usual indicia of the transfer of title.

There are important categories of copyrighted article transfers for DISC purposes: (i) a transfer of tangible property, such as a tangible medium in which the copyrighted article Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Planning • Tax Tips

The Export Disc Corporation (IC-DISC): Computer Software And Internet Sales And Licenses – Part 5

Source of Income for Sales of Copyrighted Articles

A transfer of intangible property is a sale if the actual facts and circumstances support the fact that the transferor has transferred “all substantial rights” to the computer software property. A perpetual and exclusive license of intangible property is considered to be a transfer of “all substantial rights” is also treated as a sale, rather than as a license, for tax purposes. All the facts and circumstances are reviewed to determine whether the transaction transferred “all substantial rights” to the property in question.

A sale of a copyrighted article occurs if sufficient benefits and burdens of ownership have been transferred to the buyer, taking into account all facts and circumstances. This is the Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Planning • Tax Tips

The Export Disc Corporation (IC-DISC): Computer Software And Internet Sales And Licenses – Part 4

The Source of Income Analysis

Once it is determined that a computer program is a copyright article and thus “export property” for DISC purposes; then the issue is to determine whether the Software Program is being sold for use, consumption of disposition outside of the U.S. This analysis depends upon the “source of income” rules.

Generally under the current rules, the source of income from sales of property depends to varying extents upon both the type of property and whether the property sold or leased is “inventory property”.

Income from the lease of a copyright article must also fit this definition of non U.S. source Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Planning • Tax Tips
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