By Abe Livchitz, CPA, Senior Tax Manager & Tingting Zhang, CPA, Tax Senior
Tax deferral, gain exclusions, tax free appreciation. These seven words are very exciting as they offer potentially significant tax savings for our clients. All three of these benefits are possible by investing in a “Qualified Opportunity Fund” (QOF). The creation of these funds and their related tax benefits were authorized by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) passed by Congress in December 2017. The Internal Revenue Service recently issued guidance to clarify questions unanswered by the TCJA, so QOFs should gain in popularity in the coming months. However, additional guidance is expected in the future, as many questions remain unanswered. (more…)
By Rachel Rabindran, Accounting Consultant
In April, 2018 the California Supreme Court issued their long-awaited ruling in a class action lawsuit concerning delivery drivers. The court unanimously ruled in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County that a worker will be considered an employee of the hiring entity unless the hiring entity can establish all three of the following factors (also known as the “ABC test” to identify independent contractors): (more…)
By Sylvia Chan, CPA, Tax Manager
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA), P.L. 115-97 enacted in December 2017 has brought about exciting changes to the tax world. I would like to draw your attention to a provision that was written specifically to encourage U.S. companies to expand their operations globally without leaving the United States. Some technology companies have moved their intangible assets offshore to low-income tax jurisdictions and shifted the related income outside the United States. While tax-avoidance may not always be the primary motive, it was an inevitable truth that the U.S. Treasury was losing a portion of its revenue due to this income shifting tactic. (more…)
So you now hold cryptocurrency in your business, perhaps because you’ve decided it is an advantageous medium of exchange, or you might hope to profit from an upswing in value. Clearly, your holdings are an asset of your business, but how should you display them on your balance sheet and at what amounts? (more…)
Maybe companies got off easier than might have been, as this new law was passed in late-June 2018 in lieu of a potentially more restrictive November 2018 ballot initiative, when the initiative’s backers were convinced to throw support behind the passage of this law, instead. (more…)
To address the second part first, the accounting for the acquisition is dramatically different, depending on whether assets or a “business” is acquired. The following table summarizes some key differences. (more…)
By Danny Stumpf, IT Manager
Today, most companies rely on partnerships and subcontractors to deliver their services: marketing consultants, bill collectors, diagnostic labs, and so on. It may surprise you to learn how many different parties are involved in something as simple as buying a cup of coffee. Not only is your transaction recorded by the coffee shop, merchant provider, and ultimately your credit card company, but it is likely at least one of these will archive the purchase in a system maintained by another organization (such as a third-party data warehouse). (more…)
By Guest Blogger: Ed Correia, Founder of Sagacent Technologies
The majority of us are online regularly and during these interactions, businesses collect vast amounts of data about their clients. Your business gathers multiple pieces of information, such as birthdays, addresses, and purchasing preferences, not to mention credit card and other billing records. Right there, you now have all the information a hacker would need for identity theft. Not only does it cost your clients, but it costs businesses globally around $221 billion a year. (more…)
By Sheila Foley, Accounting Consultant
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was enacted in late December, 2017 and it significantly altered the tax laws applicable to individual taxpayers. The significant changes included: reduction in tax rates and modification of brackets, increase in the standard deduction, repeal of personal exemptions, limitation on deductions for state and local taxes, mortgage interest, home equity loan interest and elimination of deduction for miscellaneous itemized deductions. (more…)
