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…)
What Can You Do to Prevent Identity Theft Online?
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…)
Payroll Withholding Confusion – Are You Withholding Enough from Your Paycheck?
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…)
Cryptocurrency Tax Update - Still More Questions Than Answers
There have been a few developments since we last looked at cryptocurrency in April, 2017 (Are Bitcoin Users Cheating on Taxes? (Or Are They Just Confounded by the Rules?)). The IRS has increased tax compliance enforcement but unfortunately, guidance from the Internal Revenue Service has not kept up with the advances in the cryptocurrency world continuing tax reporting challenges.
In 2014 the IRS released their position regarding the taxation of cryptocurrency transactions in Notice 2014-21 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf). The IRS notified taxpayers that: (more…)
Stranded Tax Effects from New Tax Act
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act), enacted on December 22, 2017, creates some interesting consequences when applying US GAAP principles for income tax accounting related to deferred taxes. FASB guidance requires that deferred income tax assets and liabilities be remeasured as a result of changes in tax laws or tax rates. As commonly known by now, the Act reduced the maximum tax rate for corporations to 21% from 35%. (more…)
Look Before You Leap - Understanding Some Unique Accounting Rules
In the last couple of years, I have witnessed several of my private company clients reorganize their operations, through either a merger, an acquisition or a significant management member buyout. While such situations provide a great stage for all to display their accounting chops, they also present us an opportunity to consult with our clients and help them avoid an accounting faux pas or burdensome and unnecessary disclosures caused by an inadvertent accounting election. So, in no specific order, I thought I would summarize some of the unique accounting issues I’ve encountered in such situations and how to navigate them: (more…)
Tax Reform Webinar Series
For the first time in over 30 years, Congress has approved and the President has signed into law a massive tax reform package not seen since 1986. The enactment of the law officially known as “An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018” (which we will simply call the new Tax Act), has far-reaching consequences to almost every taxpaying individual and business entity.
Our goal here at Abbott Stringham and Lynch is to provide our clients and friends with the tools and information you need to successfully navigate the “simplified” tax laws so that you can operate your business and organize your personal affairs in order to pay the least amount of tax required by law. To that end, we have organized a series of tax webinars to discuss tax reform legislation and provide observations on key provisions of the Act as they relate to individuals, estates, corporations and pass-through entities (S corporations and partnerships). (more…)
Revenue Recognition Update – Step 5: Recognizing Revenue When (Or As) the Entity Satisfies a Performance Obligation
After all the research and analysis put in working through the prior four steps, you are now able to begin the process for recognizing revenue for the transaction price (Step 3) which has been allocated to each performance obligation (Step 4).
Each performance obligation identified in Step 2 can be satisfied by either the transfer of a promised good or by performing a service to the customer. This distinction will be the main driver for the next decision that needs to be made, and that is, whether the revenue needs to be recorded over time or at a point in time. For a good majority of the identified performance obligations, a good or service will be transferred/consumed over a period of time and therefore revenue would be recognized over that same time period. ASC 606 has helped in this analysis by providing guidance, so to recognize revenue over time, one of the following criteria needs to be met: (more…)
Revenue Recognition Update – Step 4: Allocating Transaction Price to Performance Obligations
If you have been following Steps 1 (Identify the Contract with the Customer) through 3 (Determining a Transaction Price), of the revenue recognition update as eagerly as I have, then I am sure that you keenly await the discussion on Step 4 about the allocation of the transaction price to the performance obligations in a contract. The wait is over as we explore Step 4 in this blog post. A couple key concepts that we need to understand in this process: the allocation objective and standalone selling price. (more…)