If you are about to ask for a business loan, expect to deal with the issue of covenants — constraints lenders impose on your company to keep it operating within specified financial ratios and to prevent it from taking certain actions. These clauses are meant to help the lender mitigate risk and get its money back. But if you are not careful, they can put your company in a stranglehold. Under some very strict loan agreements, if your firm violates a covenant, it can automatically go into default and be forced to pay the loan in full immediately. Typical commercial-loan
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Archives for Newsletter and Updates
Leaving a Legacy for Your Heirs
Despite its name, the term “dynasty trust” has nothing to do with aristocracy or the TV show that used to be popular. It involves preserving wealth for your heirs. With a dynasty trust, you transfer the assets of a business, real estate or other income-producing property to a trust. If they are handled properly, gift tax, estate tax and the generation skipping transfer tax may be avoided on transfers. Commonly, a dynasty trust is set up as an “inter vivos” trust during your lifetime, but it can also be triggered by a provision in your will upon your death. Depending
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Converting an Unincorporated Business Into an S Corp
The federal self-employment (SE) tax which includes mainly FICA (Social Security tax) and Medicare just keeps going higher and higher. If you’ve reached the breaking point, there may be a way to reduce those SE taxes by converting your existing unincorporated small business into an S corporation. How to Evaluate the Option If you’re a self-employed individual – meaning a sole proprietor, partner, or LLC member – you have to pay the SE tax on your net SE income. The SE tax has two parts: 1. The 12.4 percent Social Security tax. Social Security tax is due on net SE income up to a certain
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Too Much Paperwork? What You Can Throw Away After Filing
Maybe it’s a good thing that the April 15th federal tax deadline coincides with the urge to spring clean. It feels good to throw out some of the financial records stuffing your filing cabinets. But before you head for the dumpster, make sure you’re not disposing of records you may need. You don’t want to be caught empty-handed if an IRS auditor contacts you. In general, you must keep records that support items shown on your individual tax return until the statute of limitations runs out — generally, three years from the due date of the return or the date
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How to Create an Effective Small Business Website
National Small Business Week runs from May 1 through May 8. More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and these entities create about two out of every three jobs in the United States each year, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Most of today’s small businesses couldn’t survive without a website. An effective site can significantly broaden your geographic reach and showcase what differentiates you. Here are some tips for improving the effectiveness of your small business website to maximize its full potential — without breaking the bank. Freshen It Up When’s the
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Partnership Tax Developments
Recently, there have been several significant partnership and multi-member limited liability company (taxed as partnerships) tax developments. Here are quick summaries of what’s brewing on the partnership tax front. Accelerated Due Dates The Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 changed the due dates for filing partnership federal income tax returns (Form 1065). Partnerships must file Form 1065 one month earlier than before for tax years beginning after December 31, 2015. The new due date is March 15 for calendar-year-partnerships and two and one-half months after the close of the partnership’s tax year for fiscal entities. As before, six-month
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ACH and Wire Transfer Fraud at Epic Levels
Recently there has been a significant increase in companies making unauthorized transfers. The attackers are very, very good at tricking people – often using multiple communications in order to build trust. You absolutely must take the following steps to help protect you and your organization. Anything involving an ACH or a wire transfer request should immediately raise a huge red flag for every single user in all organizations. We recommend you review your policies and consider the following. Please also forward this information at your discretion to your customers, prospects, and everyone with whom you do business: If you receive any kind of
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Could Your Business Benefit from the Work Opportunity Tax Credit?
If you plan to hire new employees this year, you’re not alone. Employment statistics ended 2015 on a positive note. In addition, roughly 242,000 new jobs were added in February and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9%, its lowest level in eight years. Several recent studies indicate that the hiring momentum will continue in 2016. Hiring new employees could also earn you a credit on your tax return, if you meet certain requirements. The Work Opportunity tax credit is a tax break for qualified wages paid to new employees from certain targeted groups. This credit has undergone several changes since
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Orange County Best Places to Work 2015
Wright Ford Young & Co., one of Orange County’s premier CPA firms, is proud to announce that it was once again named among Orange County’s “Best Places to Work” by the Orange County Business Journal in the publication’s 2015 annual list. WFY was on Orange County Business Journal’s Orange County’s “Best Places to Work” annual list for the years 2011 and 2012. WFY is a firm that provides an atmosphere where people can flourish in their careers, while at the same time, maintain meaningful relationships with God, their spouses, families, and friends. WFY believes that their clients will significantly benefit
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Tax Paperwork and Other Records: What to Keep, What to Toss
E-filing is on the upswing. According to the Data Book released by the IRS on March 24, the agency collected almost $3.1 trillion in federal revenue and processed almost 240 million returns during fiscal year 2014. About 65 percent of all returns were filed electronically. Of the 147 million individual income tax returns filed, 84 percent were e-filed. You might think those numbers suggest we are close to becoming a paperless society, at least when it comes to the IRS. That would be a wrong assumption. Even if you recently filed your 2014 tax return electronically, you probably printed out a
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