Rachel Pohlman
Attorney at Law
4539 Main Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02139
(419) 459-3400
April 2, 2017
Jim Harbaugh
Small Business
5837 Tenth Avenue
New York, New York 18733
Dear Mr. Harbaugh:
I hope you are doing well. Recently you contacted me seeking tax planning advice. As you have specified, you are planning to invest in a small business with about a $1 million annual revenue. Specifically, you are seeking advice on minimizing both your personal federal tax liability, and the federal tax liability of the business. I believe there are several different strategies that will result in minimization of your tax liability. I will explain these strategies more fully by focusing on both the small business and personal federal tax
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Is the business that you are investing in a Partnership, C Corporation, Sole Proprietorship, Limited Liability Corporation, or an S Corporation? If you are investing into a Partnership you may not deduct a partnership expense you pay with your own funds, unless you are required to do so pursuant to the partnership agreement or customary practice. Johnson v Commr, TC Memo 1984-598. Therefore, it may be in your best interest to avoid paying out of your pocket for partnership expenses that are reimbursable by the partnership, including but not limited to; travel, meals, entertainment, and continuing legal education. Id.
If your business investment is an S Corporation, IRC Section 183, would bar you as an individual, or the S Corporation itself, from deducting amounts spent on activities that are performed as hobbies. Is the intention of the business you are investing in to earn profit? You will want to make sure that your business is a profit-seeking business, because this is the only way that you will be able to deduct in a trade or business or for your business investment expense. IRC Section 162, IRC Section 212. This rule also applies if your business investment is for a partnership. Therefore, it is vital that the business investment is for the intention to make profit. Id.
Furthermore, to minimize your federal tax liability, it is important to be prepared if the IRS decides to re-compute your personal income or the income at a
to have timely filed your return - even if it is not received by the IRS.
Conclusion: Small Business Investment: Spurs investments in small businesses by cutting the capital gains tax on investors in small businesses who buy stock (in the next two
For a corporation in 2012, the domestic production activities deduction is equal to 9% of the higher of (1) qualified production activities income or (2) taxable income. However, the deduction cannot exceed 50% of the W-2 wages related to qualified production activities income.
Thank you for joining me here today in this joint session of congress. What I want to talk about today is the elephant in the room we have all been avoiding. This issue isn’t a win for the Democrats or the Republicans, it’s a win for the roughly 75 million Americans who aren’t even old enough to vote us into office, but who will suffer from our negligence (U.S. Census Bureau). As a government we cannot continue to act irresponsibly outside of our means with no intention to fix the problem. I come here today to urge us to take action by fixing the broken tax code for individuals and for businesses and to make government spending more responsible to take on the trillions of dollars gift we plan to pass down to our children, that’s right, the U.S. debt.
The Personal Income Tax Law is design to give income tax credit to senior citizen who rent in certain counties of the state of California. The Personal Income tax applies mainly to those senior citizen living in poverty levels and renting in the County of Alameda, the City and County of San Francisco, County of Ventura, and the County of Santa Clara. Certain qualifications must be met by the senior citizen requesting the income tax credit. Some of these qualifications includes being over the age of 62 years, the qualified residence must be the primary residence, name on the lease, income of less than $50,000, and live in the qualifying counties. Today, 20 percent of seniors, 65 years and older, already live below poverty level and Homelessness among senior citizen is on the rise.
If you own your own small business, you know about deducting your business expenses. To be deductible, the Internal Revenue Service says an expense needs to be both ordinary and necessary. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful or appropriate for your trade or business. An expense does not have to be indispensable to be considered necessary.
The three categories of tax deductions allowable to individual taxpayers are (1) trade or business expenses (including the
Government requires fund to take care of its citizens and provide development measures within its jurisdiction. So one of the sources is levy of taxes in direct and indirect form. Irrespective of Tom, Dick and Harry , one cannot avoid the taxes. Before getting into know about how you directly pay taxes, lets look how indirect tax goes from your pocket.
There is a strict requirement by the Internal Revenue Service to taxpayers requiring them to follow appropriate guidelines as they try to make a determination on whether an activity is a profit making investment activity or as a hobby or pastime. These guidelines are meant for taxation purposes and serve to ensure that the taxpayers are taxed fairly, and they pay all taxes that are due. Failure to indicate profits or losses made in a hobby or business venture may have an impact on the tax liability of an individual. It is, therefore, important that hobbies are not conducted as businesses and taxes not paid for them as a means of tax evasion. The Internal Revenue Code is the statute that specifically deals with administration of tax
With years of experience in resolving offshore tax problems, I would like to highlight some of the myths surrounding the IRS tax settlement process. The following are the things that I am told quite frequently - not only by prospective clients, but also by several other tax experts and attorneys.
For LLCs, sole proprietorships, and partnerships, the rules differ slightly again. Unfortunately, bonuses cannot be deducted as business expenses as the IRS considers the owners, members, and partners to be self-employed.
My next step would involve consulting with the client in regards to his risk tolerance. In many instances, minimizing the client's tax liability may result in increased risk to the client. For example, municipal bonds are tax exempt. These
In circumstances where the level of the activity is dependent on other businesses in the industry, and can enable the investors make credible and sustainable profit, then the activity is considered a business not a hobby (Accounting Tools Online, 2012). These indicators present clear guidance as to whether activities are businesses or hobbies according to Australian business law. Given that the activity fails to comply with the above indicators, does not automatically discount the activity as a business.
It is therefore important for a taxpayer to consider their intensions before being able to get into an activity and make any commitments in terms of investments. It is their intensions that will differentiate whether such an engagement will be considered as a hobby or business. A tax payer should be at a position to make a sound decision based on the ATO guidelines, that in order to qualify an activity as a business, the investor should have been driven by a profit motive, that from such an investment he/she expects to profit out of the investment or profits are expected at a later date in future. In certain situations where the taxpayers activity is sustained by
If the expense was for both work and private purposes, you can only claim a deduction for the work-related portion.