December, 2006
This is our last monthly newsletter you’ll receive in 2006, so we want to remind you of a few things:
Prepare to issue 1099s for contractors and W-2’s for employees next
month (our most recent issue of the paid monthly newsletter is all about 1099s).
For
contractors, you’ll need to send people W-9’s to ask them to tell
you what their tax ID# is, and if they’re a corporation or not. You can
download the W-9 from the IRS site at: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf?portlet=3 You
generally don’t have to issue 1099s to corporations (except to lawyers—I
guess they have a bad lobby!) The 1099s should be postmarked to the recipients
by January 31st 2007 for tax year 2006 payments. You’ll send a copy to
the Social Security Administration postmarked by February 28th, 2007. Hopefully
you have a payroll service to issue the W-2’s.
Presentation by Andy in January ’07
Andy is giving a “Tax Update by the Tax Buddha” for the Emeryville
Chamber of Commerce the morning of January 11th, 2007, a Thursday, from 8-9:15
am, with Q & A after that. For more info, go to: http://www.chamberhub.com/cgi/foxweb.dll/wlx/cal/wlxprofile?caleid=884&cc=ECOC and register. Andy will be talking about changes to the law as well as reviewing
some important information you’ll need to know for both 2006 and 2007
tax years. Plus there will be coffee!
There is a temptation to ‘buy a truck’ at
year end to increase your Section 179 deduction for 2006. If you need a new
truck, or some other capital
equipment anyway (like a computer, or more goats), go ahead. If you’re
just trying to lower your taxes for 2006, remember you have to pay for that
truck eventually. If it doesn’t make business sense, don’t let
the tax “tail” wag
the business decision “dog.” If you’re planning on trying
to get a business loan in 2007, maybe you want to consider paying a little
more
tax in 2006 to show more income. This is a “planning opportunity” rather
than a time to panic.
Estimated Tax Payments, pay State in December?
Often people pay their 4th estimated STATE tax payment in December because you can often deduct state taxes on your federal return. Payments of state tax are ‘removed’ for AMT purposes, so if you’re in the upper brackets, you may not get the benefit. You might as well wait until January 15th for the fourth FEDERAL estimated payment. No benefit to sending this in early.
The best tax planning is based on knowing what will happen to your income and your business next year. If you’re going to have some dramatic increase or decrease to your income next year, be sure to contact us to see if we can help minimize the total tax over the two years.
There’s still time to incorporate or form an LLC with a start date of 1/1/07
if you want to have the entire year as an entity, but it does take some time,
so be sure to contact us if you’re so inclined. There will be a small “expediting
fee” from California—we anticipate about $50 or so on top of the ‘normal’ fees.
If your company has a holiday party for substantially all the employees and/or
clients, it is 100% deductible, provided it is infrequent and doesn’t
involve flying everyone and their spouses to France for lunch. The normal holiday
party
falls within the “de minimus” benefit rules, that is, the party
is of such little monetary value as to be insubstantial. Generally you should
try
to keep it under $100 per employee to be de minimus. No reporting of wages
to the employee is needed in this case, fully deductible for you.
“Gifts” have a limit of $25 value, plus you can spend “incidental” costs
beyond the $25 for things like engraving the client’s or employee’s
name or postage to get the gift to them. If you give theatre tickets to a client,
for example, it starts to look like “entertainment” expense and
the deductibility is reduced to 50%! But if the tickets are $25 or less, it
can be
entirely deducted as a gift. Gift amounts over the $25 limit are non-deductible,
just like parking tickets.
Bonuses to employees, which includes a “gift card” (if it is more than $25), is Wage. That means it is subject to payroll tax and needs to appear on their W-2. There is a special “bonus withholding rate” your payroll provider should know about, as long as you identify payments as “bonus.”
While you’re thinking about gifts, a fully deductible gift you can get
your business is an annual subscription to our newsletter on CD, delivered to
your mailbox throughout the year. If you wish to join our paid subscribers and
receive our “Monthly Master Newsletter” including a relevant article
once per month and other goodies, please sign up by downloading a subscription
form at http://www.taxbuddha.com/newsletter/newsletter_order_form.pdf