The IRS has announced that the tax extenders legislation will not slow the start of tax season. The IRS will be open for business on January 19, as planned. On this day personal tax returns, 1040 forms, can be electronically filed. All 1040s will begin to be processed at that time so sending in a paper return before that date will not speed up the process. Paper returns will be held until January 19 and processed at that time.
Tax season will end on Monday, April 18, 2016, because Washington, D.C. will celebrate Emancipation Day and when D.C. closes and the IRS takes a break, it slows down the end of tax season.
The IRS urges tax payers to make certain all tax filing forms have been received before filing a tax return, this included W-2s, 1099s and the new form 1095-A from the Marketplace for tax payers who plan to take the premium tax credit. I will be writing a separate post on these forms which are new.
E-file and direct deposit are still the quickest and safest ways to file returns and claim refunds. You can do this yourself, sometimes for free if certain qualifications are met, or for a small fee. You can also use the services of a tax professional if you prefer. If you have any questions, please post a question and I'll do my best to supply an answer.
Showing posts with label CPA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CPA. Show all posts
Friday, December 25, 2015
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
What? You want to start your own business? Why? part 2
It's very difficult to know how long a blog entry is until it's posted, so please forgive the overly long previous entry. If you did make it all the way through to the end, then you know how I came to be in the position of needing more work and why I chose to create a seminar for small businesses. I won't waste a lot of space going over the previous post. The short of it, and I'm sure you want the short version, is that I have a lot of information I've either figured out the hard way or have discussed with others in business and I want to pass this on to anyone thinking of starting a small business or already in one and wanting to make certain they are going down the right path.
After my unscientific survey, which consisted of asking as many small business owners as I could about their interest in a seminar like this, I decided to proceed. What was the first step? First I needed to research the topics for my seminar. I could not come up with two and a half hours of small business insights and knowledge on the spur of the moment. Well, I guess I could but no one would want to pay me to listen to it. I needed to be more organized and through.
I went to the web page of my favorite professional education vendor and looked over their course list. In the past the normal course provided eight, sixteen or twenty-four hours of continuing credit which was fine. In depth is the way to go with tax and accounting topics. But this time I needed a lot of information about a lot of different topics and didn't have the time or the money to take ten or twelve eight hour courses. Lucky for me, this year the educational group had come up with some short courses that covered all the topics I wanted to know more about. Perfect! I purchased and downloaded my classes and got to work.
I wanted to develop two things before I gave my first seminar, the first was a seminar manual which would go hand in hand with what I was going to talk about and the other was the actual seminar. The manual would be provided in PDF format so that seminar participants could have it loaded on their computer, iPad, phone or other electronic reading device and be able to refer to it as I conducted the seminar. The manual would have links to web pages of interest which could be accessed through the manual if the Internet was available.
This seemed to be going well and I was making good progress, then tax season hit. I took a few months off from my preparation to get some work out and some money in. Then it was back to work in June on the companion manual which is now almost finished. I had visited a web page in which all the FAQs were presented in a question-answer format that I found to be easily understood and to present information that I needed without a lot of extra language I didn't want wade through. I decided to structure the companion manual in that way making it easy to read and not filled with extra information. Just the facts, ma'am. The seminar is the place to get the facts filled out and plumped up with extra knowledge.
Next blog entry will discuss finding a place to hold the seminar and advertising. One proved easier than the other but both were new experiences for me.
After my unscientific survey, which consisted of asking as many small business owners as I could about their interest in a seminar like this, I decided to proceed. What was the first step? First I needed to research the topics for my seminar. I could not come up with two and a half hours of small business insights and knowledge on the spur of the moment. Well, I guess I could but no one would want to pay me to listen to it. I needed to be more organized and through.
I went to the web page of my favorite professional education vendor and looked over their course list. In the past the normal course provided eight, sixteen or twenty-four hours of continuing credit which was fine. In depth is the way to go with tax and accounting topics. But this time I needed a lot of information about a lot of different topics and didn't have the time or the money to take ten or twelve eight hour courses. Lucky for me, this year the educational group had come up with some short courses that covered all the topics I wanted to know more about. Perfect! I purchased and downloaded my classes and got to work.
I wanted to develop two things before I gave my first seminar, the first was a seminar manual which would go hand in hand with what I was going to talk about and the other was the actual seminar. The manual would be provided in PDF format so that seminar participants could have it loaded on their computer, iPad, phone or other electronic reading device and be able to refer to it as I conducted the seminar. The manual would have links to web pages of interest which could be accessed through the manual if the Internet was available.
This seemed to be going well and I was making good progress, then tax season hit. I took a few months off from my preparation to get some work out and some money in. Then it was back to work in June on the companion manual which is now almost finished. I had visited a web page in which all the FAQs were presented in a question-answer format that I found to be easily understood and to present information that I needed without a lot of extra language I didn't want wade through. I decided to structure the companion manual in that way making it easy to read and not filled with extra information. Just the facts, ma'am. The seminar is the place to get the facts filled out and plumped up with extra knowledge.
Next blog entry will discuss finding a place to hold the seminar and advertising. One proved easier than the other but both were new experiences for me.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
What? You want to start your own business? Why?
I'm in the process of trying to expand my CPA practice into a new area. I want to give seminars to other small businesses about how to start a small business, what to expect once started, and if the small business is already plugging along, how to make sure the business is moving in the right direction and not heading over a cliff.
I didn't come up with this over night. It was a long process. As I stand on the verge of actually giving a seminar in September, I thought there might be some people who'd like to know how the process of starting a business works. What? You want to start your own business? Why? Believe me, I sometimes ask myself those same questions.
First some background. I am a CPA. I've been a CPA for over two decades and I grew up in my father's small CPA practice in Knoxville, TN. As soon as my sister and I were able, he had had us pulling blank tax forms from the file cabinet and filling in the tax payer name and ID so he wouldn't have to take time to do that when the client came for their appointment. (Yeah, I'm so old we used to prepare taxes by hand with paper and pencil. But I try to stay current.)
I didn't start out to be a CPA. It wasn't something I dreamed about or planned to do. In fact, I was certain I didn't want to be in business at all and majored in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Creative Writing while at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Well, that lasted about as long as it took me to realize that the pay check of a "secretary", which was the best job my major could achieve, was not for me. I could survive on that pay but I didn't want to. Eventually my father wanted to retire and sell his practice. My mother suggested he offer the practice to me or my sister first. My sister had no interest at all, but I thought, "Hey, he makes more money than I do." I also liked the freedom being self-employed would bring. I was in.
I had to go back to UT and take all those business courses I'd avoided during my first pass at a college education. Luckily I was going back to school during the last few days when an individual could sit for the CPA exam with any undergraduate degree and thirty-six hours (if I remember correctly) of accounting and business. Currently a candidate for the CPA exam must have a Masters in Accountancy which I didn't want to do. With my extra business credits in hand, I signed up for the Becker CPA review. Forty hours a week and then some, studying for a two and a half day exam. It's not that way now but back then, the first time a candidate sat for the CPA exam it started on Wednesday afternoon and finished Friday evening. Yes, you got to go home in the evenings, but Thursday and Friday, you were back at the testing desk taking that exam. It was brutal. The studying was brutal. The worry over making mistakes was brutal. I had never studied for an exam in my life the way I studied for that exam. I had decided to sit for the CPA exam only once, sink or swim. I was not going through this again. Since I did want to be a CPA, I wanted to pass the first time. And pass I did. I will never forget the day I received my grades in the mail along with the happy news that once I passed my ethics exam and spent two years as an apprentice CPA I'd have my certificate to practice. It was a happy day for my dad as well. The day I received my permit to practice, he walked out of the office never to return.
Over night I had a small CPA practice in my hands. Since all the clients knew me, I didn't lose any business. During my wandering and unplanned journey through the UT educational system, trying to find a major I enjoyed enough to finish, I had taken a public speaking class. I now put this skill to good use by giving short talks about various tax issues to business groups at luncheon and dinner meetings all around town. The practice was growing. I was in charge. Life was great.
Then my left leg began to go numb.
Eventually I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Remember I'm old (well, older) and when I was diagnosed there were no medicines for MS at all. The best that could be done was to try and stop the progression of a flair up and return the patient to "normal" as quickly as possible. MS is an extremely unpredictable disease and at the moment of diagnosis it is impossible to determine how the disease will progress, but most people lose mobility rapidly and are unable to work. I didn't know what my future would hold. I continued to work and had massive MS attacks at every tax deadline. Lucky for me, I had purchased private disability which my doctor suggest I use, and my mother and I retired to her home town of Woodbury, to await our mutual declines.
The loss of my tax practice was devastating. I love taxes. The tax code is crazy and funny and weird. I love reading it. I love preparing taxes. I love talking with clients. My Knoxville monthly write-up clients followed me to Woodbury, first via mail and phone, and then by email and skype. I didn't have to be in the same town as my clients to do my job. But working still wasn't easy.
Gradually as client's needs changed my practice contracted and I started a family. The decline in the stock market and the US economy decimated my disability income. I needed more work. As a stop gap measure I went to work for a local client who was in need of reliable help. It wasn't easy work but it was steady and gave me time to think. I came up with the idea to give seminars for small businesses. Not the small business by IRS definition of grossing five to fifteen million dollars, but the real small business with one employee - the owner. The small business owner who sells the job in the morning and goes back in the afternoon to do the job. The small business consisting of the husband and wife working together; one doing the work, the other handling the paperwork while their kids played under the kitchen table. The small business that doesn't have time to stop and ask questions because they are living on the edge and stopping to reflect and ask questions doesn't happen very often. Most often, when something happens to throw the whole train off the track.
I began to ask the small business people I know if they would have been interested in a seminar like this when they were starting out. Oh, yes, was the answer every time. So I began to do the research and put together my seminar while living off the line of credit on my house. The line of credit is running low and the time is now to begin. Even after being in business for decades, starting a new type of business is frightening. If it's frightening for me, a seasoned business professional, I can only imagine what it's like for someone with no experience. Therefore, these blog entries.
As I write this I don't know if my Business Education Seminars Today or BEST of Small Businesses will even pay for the advertising I have already agreed to buy. And it is frightening. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let go of the rope. You know all the old adages as well as I do. The bottom line (another old adage) is that I have to start somewhere and I've started.
Next blog entry: how I prepared and shaped my new venture before I booked the venue or advertised.
I didn't come up with this over night. It was a long process. As I stand on the verge of actually giving a seminar in September, I thought there might be some people who'd like to know how the process of starting a business works. What? You want to start your own business? Why? Believe me, I sometimes ask myself those same questions.
First some background. I am a CPA. I've been a CPA for over two decades and I grew up in my father's small CPA practice in Knoxville, TN. As soon as my sister and I were able, he had had us pulling blank tax forms from the file cabinet and filling in the tax payer name and ID so he wouldn't have to take time to do that when the client came for their appointment. (Yeah, I'm so old we used to prepare taxes by hand with paper and pencil. But I try to stay current.)
I didn't start out to be a CPA. It wasn't something I dreamed about or planned to do. In fact, I was certain I didn't want to be in business at all and majored in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Creative Writing while at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Well, that lasted about as long as it took me to realize that the pay check of a "secretary", which was the best job my major could achieve, was not for me. I could survive on that pay but I didn't want to. Eventually my father wanted to retire and sell his practice. My mother suggested he offer the practice to me or my sister first. My sister had no interest at all, but I thought, "Hey, he makes more money than I do." I also liked the freedom being self-employed would bring. I was in.
I had to go back to UT and take all those business courses I'd avoided during my first pass at a college education. Luckily I was going back to school during the last few days when an individual could sit for the CPA exam with any undergraduate degree and thirty-six hours (if I remember correctly) of accounting and business. Currently a candidate for the CPA exam must have a Masters in Accountancy which I didn't want to do. With my extra business credits in hand, I signed up for the Becker CPA review. Forty hours a week and then some, studying for a two and a half day exam. It's not that way now but back then, the first time a candidate sat for the CPA exam it started on Wednesday afternoon and finished Friday evening. Yes, you got to go home in the evenings, but Thursday and Friday, you were back at the testing desk taking that exam. It was brutal. The studying was brutal. The worry over making mistakes was brutal. I had never studied for an exam in my life the way I studied for that exam. I had decided to sit for the CPA exam only once, sink or swim. I was not going through this again. Since I did want to be a CPA, I wanted to pass the first time. And pass I did. I will never forget the day I received my grades in the mail along with the happy news that once I passed my ethics exam and spent two years as an apprentice CPA I'd have my certificate to practice. It was a happy day for my dad as well. The day I received my permit to practice, he walked out of the office never to return.
Over night I had a small CPA practice in my hands. Since all the clients knew me, I didn't lose any business. During my wandering and unplanned journey through the UT educational system, trying to find a major I enjoyed enough to finish, I had taken a public speaking class. I now put this skill to good use by giving short talks about various tax issues to business groups at luncheon and dinner meetings all around town. The practice was growing. I was in charge. Life was great.
Then my left leg began to go numb.
Eventually I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Remember I'm old (well, older) and when I was diagnosed there were no medicines for MS at all. The best that could be done was to try and stop the progression of a flair up and return the patient to "normal" as quickly as possible. MS is an extremely unpredictable disease and at the moment of diagnosis it is impossible to determine how the disease will progress, but most people lose mobility rapidly and are unable to work. I didn't know what my future would hold. I continued to work and had massive MS attacks at every tax deadline. Lucky for me, I had purchased private disability which my doctor suggest I use, and my mother and I retired to her home town of Woodbury, to await our mutual declines.
The loss of my tax practice was devastating. I love taxes. The tax code is crazy and funny and weird. I love reading it. I love preparing taxes. I love talking with clients. My Knoxville monthly write-up clients followed me to Woodbury, first via mail and phone, and then by email and skype. I didn't have to be in the same town as my clients to do my job. But working still wasn't easy.
Gradually as client's needs changed my practice contracted and I started a family. The decline in the stock market and the US economy decimated my disability income. I needed more work. As a stop gap measure I went to work for a local client who was in need of reliable help. It wasn't easy work but it was steady and gave me time to think. I came up with the idea to give seminars for small businesses. Not the small business by IRS definition of grossing five to fifteen million dollars, but the real small business with one employee - the owner. The small business owner who sells the job in the morning and goes back in the afternoon to do the job. The small business consisting of the husband and wife working together; one doing the work, the other handling the paperwork while their kids played under the kitchen table. The small business that doesn't have time to stop and ask questions because they are living on the edge and stopping to reflect and ask questions doesn't happen very often. Most often, when something happens to throw the whole train off the track.
I began to ask the small business people I know if they would have been interested in a seminar like this when they were starting out. Oh, yes, was the answer every time. So I began to do the research and put together my seminar while living off the line of credit on my house. The line of credit is running low and the time is now to begin. Even after being in business for decades, starting a new type of business is frightening. If it's frightening for me, a seasoned business professional, I can only imagine what it's like for someone with no experience. Therefore, these blog entries.
As I write this I don't know if my Business Education Seminars Today or BEST of Small Businesses will even pay for the advertising I have already agreed to buy. And it is frightening. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let go of the rope. You know all the old adages as well as I do. The bottom line (another old adage) is that I have to start somewhere and I've started.
Next blog entry: how I prepared and shaped my new venture before I booked the venue or advertised.
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