The Change in Your Changepurse

That time of year-a
Tax time is here-a
Many lira
Disappear-a

The above is perhaps my favorite all-time tax rhyme.  It’s from a song by Adam Sandler’s “Opera Man,” sung during SNL’s Weekend Update segment.  Even without paying taxes, many of us have recently seen our money begin to evaporate, in the form of slower sales, exhorbitant gas prices and drops in property value.  Some of these issues have been somewhat mitigated by the IRS’s 2008 Tax Changes for Businesses, while others have … Read more »

FiledNews
Tags, , , , , , , , , ,
Date2.10.2009

Worth Its Weight: NWBC Town Hall Meeting

Today I attended a San Francisco Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the National Women’s Business Council — an advisory council that reports to the offices of the President and Members of Congress the issues that women in small business face every day.  While it is obviously important to make your voice heard to your representatives in government, our concerns as small businesswomen could have been collected via e-mail or online survey.  Such a method might have gotten more more responses (today’s event was limited to 200 participants) and certainly would have cost a lot less than … Read more »

FiledBiz Miss, Blog
Tags, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Date11.07.2008

Dear Diary, Today I Went to Starbucks

If you are self-employed and either eat out or drive on the job, chances are you’ll want to deduct what you spend on those things. But meals and car expenses are two of the most likely things on your tax return to get scrutinized by the IRS, and who wants to organize hundreds of receipts for small dollar amounts? An easy alternative is to keep a spending diary — or two or three. A spending diary eliminates the need for you to keep tons of receipts for tiny amounts and is also one of the only spending records the … Read more »

FiledUncategorized
Tags, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Date3.27.2008

Steady at the Wheel: Car Deductions

One of the areas of your tax return at which the IRS looks most closely is the section covering car deductions. There’s a reason for this: it’s a difficult set of tax laws to navigate and many people over-deduct or use sloppy estimates, resulting in more money for the government when they catch you. You don’t need receipts for everything, since it’s difficult to get receipts for things like mileage, but you do need detailed records of everything.

Car deductions are easy if you have a company car. In this case, you can just deduct the whole shebang. … Read more »

FiledBiz Miss, Blog
Tags, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Date3.19.2008

A+BxC=Audit

Most everyone knows that there are certain common parameters that make you more likely to get audited by the IRS, such as:

making more than $100,000
having low income and high expenses
carrying inventory
claiming high deductions for meals and entertainment, travel, and car expenses
being self-employed and/or claiming a home office
holding a mostly cash-income job, such as waiting tables or bartending

But did you know that the IRS actually uses a very strict formula to determine most of the tax returns that get scrutinized? It’s called the “DIF Score,” (Discriminate Income Function) and while the actual formula is very closely guarded secret, … Read more »

FiledBiz Miss, Blog
Tags, , , , , , , ,
Date3.13.2008

Thanks, Dubya!

Today when I opened my mailbox, I found a notice from the IRS about the “economic stimulus act of 2008.”  I wrote about this back in January, but Congress apparently made it happen in time for this tax season.

There’s plenty of confusing language in the one-page letter, and lots of provisions that don’t fit quite so neatly into their “How to Determine Your Stimulus Payment” chart, but basically it breaks down like this:

If you made less than $75,000 in 2007 and you owe income tax (i.e. you’re not expecting a refund), your “stimulus payment” is $600.
If … Read more »

FiledUncategorized
Tags, , , , , ,
Date3.11.2008
← Previous