Did you know the penalty for not filing your taxes on time is higher than the penalty for not paying on time?

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Here are eight important points about penalties for filing or paying late.

  1. A failure-to-file penalty may apply if you did not file by the tax filing deadline. A failure-to-pay penalty may apply if you did not pay all of the taxes you owe by the tax filing deadline.
  2. The failure-to-file penalty is generally more than the failure-to-pay penalty. You should file your tax return on time each year, even if you’re not able to pay all the taxes you owe by the due date. You can reduce additional interest and penalties by paying as much as you can with your tax return. You should  explore other payment options such as getting a loan or making an installment agreement to make payments. The IRS will work with you.
  3. The penalty for filing late is normally 5 percent of the unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that a tax return is late. That penalty starts accruing the day after the tax filing due date and will not exceed 25 percent of your unpaid taxes.
  4. If you do not pay your taxes by the tax deadline, you normally will face a failure-to-pay penalty of ½ of 1 percent of your unpaid taxes. That penalty applies for each month or part of a month after the due date and starts accruing the day after the tax-filing due date.
  5. If you timely requested an extension of time to file your individual income tax return and paid at least 90 percent of the taxes you owe with your request, you may not face a failure-to-pay penalty. However, you must pay any remaining balance by the extended due date.
  6. If both the 5 percent failure-to-file penalty and the ½ percent failure-to-pay penalties apply in any month, the maximum penalty that you’ll pay for both is 5 percent.
  7. If you file your return more than 60 days after the due date or extended due date, the minimum penalty is the smaller of $135 or 100 percent of the unpaid tax.
  8. You will not have to pay a late-filing or late-payment penalty if you can show reasonable cause for not filing or paying on time.

Did you know there are multiple IRS payment plans?

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Many individuals are unaware that the IRS has different types of payment plans if you owe tax, some will not remove tax liens, so you have to be very careful to make sure you enroll in the correct plan.

If paying the entire tax debt all at once is not possible, an installment agreement is an alternative allowed by the IRS. The IRS has four different types of installment agreements: guaranteed, streamlined, partial payment, and non-streamlined.

Guaranteed Installment Agreement

To qualify for a guaranteed installment agreement with the IRS, the taxpayer must meet the following conditions:

  • Owe less than $50,000, (not including interest and penalties);
  • In the previous five years the taxpayer has filed tax returns, paid taxes owed, and has not entered into an installment agreement;
  • The taxpayer is unable to pay the tax liability when due or within 120 days;
  • The tax liability will be paid off within three years; and
  • The taxpayer must pay at least the minimum monthly payment (tax liability, interest, and penalties divided by 30).

Under this payment plan, the IRS will not file a federal tax lien against the taxpayer.

Streamlined Installment Agreement

In most cases, a taxpayer that qualifies for a guaranteed agreement will also qualify for the streamlined installment agreement. A streamlined installment agreement has the following requirements:

  • The tax liability, interest, and penalties do not exceed $50,000;
  • The balance can be paid off within 72 months; and
  • The proposed payment is equal to or greater than the “minimum acceptable payment” (the minimum acceptable payment is the greater of $25 or the minimum payment amount reached by dividing the tax liability, interest, and penalties by 50)

The taxpayer must pay a fee to set up the installment agreement or a reduced fee for a direct debit installment agreement. To restructure or reinstate a previous installment agreement, the IRS charges a different fee. Like a guaranteed installment agreement, the IRS does not file a federal tax lien.

Partial Payment Installment Agreement

A partial payment agreement allows the IRS to enter into agreements with taxpayers for the partial payment of a tax liability. To qualify for this arrangement, the taxpayer must complete a financial statement using Form 433-F to report income and living expenses. The IRS will review and verify the information. If the taxpayer has assets that can be sold to pay some of the tax debt, the IRS will require the taxpayer to provide additional information.

If approved, the taxpayer will be required to participate in a financial review every two years. This review may result in the increase in installment payments or the termination of the agreement.

Non-Streamlined Installment Agreement

If a taxpayer owes $50,000 or more and can make monthly payments to the IRS, a non-streamlined agreement is an option. The IRS will not automatically approve this agreement; instead, the taxpayer must negotiate with the IRS. The taxpayer must file Form 433-F, Collection Information Statement. This form collects information about income, debts, living expenses, assets, accounts, and allows the taxpayer to propose an installment payment amount.

It will usually take a few months for the IRS to review a proposed payment plan. The IRS may refuse a proposed agreement if it considers some of the taxpayer’s living expenses unnecessary, if untruthful information was provided, or if the taxpayer failed to complete a prior installment arrangement.

If a taxpayer is unable to pay a tax liability through a non-streamlined agreement, consider filing an Offer in Compromise.

Ways to Make Payments

Taxpayers can make installment payments using the following methods:

  • Payroll deduction
  • Direct debit
  • Check or money order
  • Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS)
  • Credit card
  • Online Payment Agreement (OPA)

When Will the IRS Revoke an Installment Agreement

The IRS can revoke an installment arrangement under the following circumstances:

  • The taxpayer misses a payment;
  • The taxpayer does not file a tax return or pay taxes after the agreement is entered into;
  • The taxpayer provided inaccurate information on Form 433-F; or
  • The taxpayer is paying under a partial payment installment agreement and a review indicates a change in their financial position

Self-Employed and the Holidays

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Being Self-Employed in the holidays can be very hard if you don’t have a plan. This time of year sales aren’t doing as well  or there stagnant and you just aren’t prepared for the additional cost. Disappointing your family again with a cheap Christmas can make you feel like a failure in your business.

Don’t let Christmas be an expense you didn’t prepare for. Create a budget that includes the holidays as a line item. A lot of times we have a budget in are head that has to do with Monthly expenses and when an unforeseen cost comes we are not prepared and it can become devastating. Here some tips to help you prepare:

Take a look at what you spent on Christmas last year.

Start by plugging in your normal monthly expenses like gas, utilities, insurance and groceries. Then, enter your more flexible spending budget groups, like dining out and fun money. What’s left? Will that be enough for Christmas? If not, you may have to adjust some of that flexible spending to make it work.

If you typically spend $300 on restaurants in a month, why not cook a few extra meals at home and stash an extra $200 toward Christmas savings? Or if your fun money is sitting pretty at $150 a month, why not hold off (temporarily) and put an extra $100 into your Christmas fund? Smart budgeting now can free up more money for what you want later—like Christmas presents!

Separate your Christmas budget into categories

Gifts are usually the largest Christmas budget expense, just remember you need to budget for all things Christmas—including decorations, wrapping paper, travel, festive meals, charitable donations, and anything else you’re planning to do over the holidays.

Once you’ve figured out how much you can spend on Christmas, do some simple math. Take your number—let’s say $500—and think over your seasonal expenses. You’ll need money for travel ($50), a tree and trimmings ($70), a few potluck parties ($30), and some extra giving ($50). Then there’s the big one: Christmas gifts ($300). Make a goal amount and stick to it! You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can pile up a stash of cash when you just make a point to save.

Now that you have your Christmas budget all set, you know how much you’ll need to add to your Christmas fund. As long as you plan where your money will go before you spend it, there’s no right or wrong way to split up your Christmas budget.

Next Year Plan ahead with a Christmas fund.

You know Christmas is in December every year, so there’s no reason to act like it suddenly snuck up on you. Start putting away money for Christmas now!

Once you’ve determined the total you want to spend on Christmas, determine when you want to start saving and divide it by the number of weeks left until Christmas.

Top 10 Tax Tips for the Self-Employed

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  1. Open a separate bank account for your business
  2. Save and Organize your receipts by Category for easier record keeping
  3. Keep track of all of your business income, at least on a monthly basis
  4. Make Quarterly Estimated tax payments.
  5. Create and maintain a spending plan or budget and try to stay on target as much as possible. Change budget as circumstances change.
  6. Always track mileage
  7. Track your time spent on different client types
  8. Keep a calendar or other type’s appointment setters to keep record of your routine. This will make it easier to prove business deductibility like business lunches.
  9. Save all your tax documents for at least 7 years
  10. Limit spending for business on your personal bank accounts, if needed, transfer money to business account then make the business purchases. This will make it clearer for you to recognize what is business and what is personal.

For a list of Business Categories or tips on how to maintain business records, click the contact us link at the top of the page.

Should I incorporate? For Self-employed individuals, 1099-misc employees, independent contractors, Sales agents, etc.

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If you’ve been self-employed or are starting as a self-employed individual, you’ve probably have come across the dreaded SELF-EMPLOYED TAX. Getting paid in full is not as fun as you thought once it comes to tax time. So what is the Self-employed Tax, it basically both the employee and employer portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes. On the cuff, it would seem that you get paid less than if you were an employee, however, you are your own boss and you simply have to price your services accordingly or achieve your sales goals accordingly.

Even after you strategize your goals, you reduce your profits with expenses, and you put yourself on a consistent budget to eliminate surprises. The IRS does give you a way to minimize your SE tax and this is to incorporate. Now there are different types of entities your could elect, LLC, LLP, C-Corp, partnership, S-Corp, but for the purposes of minimizing the SE tax we will discuss the most common Pass-through entity, the S-Corp.

The Internal Revenue Service may take a close look at your taxes if you choose this route, as you could end up lowering your overall tax liability while generating the same net income.

S-Corp distributions

If you decide to incorporate as an S-corporation, you can categorize some of your income as salary and some as a distribution. You’ll still be liable for social security and medicare taxes on the salary portion of your income as well as the Employer portion, however, the benefit on is that you’ll just pay ordinary income tax on the distribution portion. Depending on how you divide your income, you could save a considerable amount of self-employment taxes just by converting to an S-corporation.

IRS view of S-Corporations

The IRS tends to take a closer look at S-corporation returns since the potential for misuse is so large. For example, if you make $200,000 in one year but only designate $30,000 of that as salary income, you might trigger an IRS inquiry, since you are avoiding so much self-employment tax. The guiding principle is that you must designate a “reasonable” amount of your income as wages, rather than a distribution. What constitutes “reasonable” can often be a gray area, but if you push the envelope too far, you put yourself at risk for an IRS audit and potentially penalties and interest on any back taxes assessed by the IRS.

S-Corporations have additional costs

While an S-corporation may save you in self-employment taxes, it may cost you more than it saves. As with larger corporations, an S-corporation has both start-up and ongoing legal and accounting costs. In some states, S-corporations must also pay additional fees and taxes. For example, in California, an S-corporation must pay tax of 1.5 percent on its income with a minimum annual amount of $800. This tax is not required for sole proprietors.

Expenses, Assets & Depreciation

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Most business owners are familiar with the Profit & Loss Report, to most money you make is income and money that goes out is an expense. But that’s not always the case, an expense is something that gets used up rather quickly and therefore the benefit is used up quickly.  Some examples are office supplies, you purchase during the year and they get used up during the year. But there are other purchases that tend to hold up business owners record keeping because even though money is being spent, it is not fully expensed the year they you use it. This can give you a incorrect analysis of your business and not match up when it comes to taxes.

Assets

Sometimes when you make a purchase it’s not an expense, it’s actually an asset.  An asset is something where the usefulness is used up over the course of several years. It provides a benefit over a longer period of time.  Examples include equipment, vehicles, or a computer.

As an example, when you purchase a vehicle and use it to deliver products, it’s providing a benefit to you over the course of much more than just one year.   That’s the difference between an asset and an expense.  Does the purchase benefit you over the course of a long period of time?  An asset will help you continue to earn revenue over the course of several years.

Matching Revenues and Expenses

In accounting rules, revenue and its associated expenses should be recorded in the same period.  This is called matching.  Let’s say you purchased a camera and recorded the entire purchase as an expense in the year you purchased it — 2015.  But the camera helps you earn money in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 . . . a long time.  So the expense and the revenue aren’t matched up together.   You’ve got revenue produced by the camera recorded over the course of several years, but the expense of the camera is only recorded in one year.  The revenue and expense are not matched.

Matching is a very important accounting principle, the revenue and associated expense need to be matched together.  This is where depreciation comes into play.  The way you get the revenue and expense to match up, is to depreciate that asset over the course of several years.

Depreciation

Lets say you bought a $5,000 computer, that expense needs to spread out over how long you think you will have that computer.  In other words, The expense needs to spread over the computer’s useful life – the period of time that it will be of benefit to you.  Often for small equipment that’s 3-5 years.  Let’s say you think the computer will last you 5 years, (i.e. it has a useful life of 5 years) you take $5,000/5 years=$1,000 of depreciation you should take each year on that computer.

In this way you are spreading out the expense to match the revenue you earn in future years.

Depreciation also serves to show that the asset you purchased is losing value every year.  Let’s say you are a florist who purchased a vehicle to deliver flowers.  It’s only used for business.  You purchased the vehicle for $20,000 and you think it will last you for 10 years, so that’s $2,000 of depreciation every year.  The car is helping you earn your revenue over the course of 10 years.   When you take that depreciation each year, you can see that that car is losing value every year.  After the first year of depreciation the asset is valued at $18,000, after the second year $16,000, and so on.

That makes sense in our heads.  A car loses value every year.  As the years go on, your asset is losing value.  Depreciation shows that declining value.

Do you know what the people of Murrieta do when they receive an IRS tax notice?

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Do you know what the people of Murrieta do when they receive an IRS tax notice?

  • It may come as a surprise to you but they’ve been knowing about this for a long time?

When people of Murrieta receive an IRS tax notice they decide to visit Summerhill Tax Services. Clients of ours think about it long and hard and interview several tax professionals before choosing Summerhill.

And when clients make the decision to address their tax matters, they can have peace knowing they understand their situation while having game plan to resolve. Receiving a Tax Notice can be stressful, each year the IRS sends millions of letters and notices to taxpayers. Although some people may feel anxious when they receive one, many are easy to resolve. Here’s what to do if you receive a letter or notice from the IRS:

  1. Don’t panic. Follow the instructions in the letter.
  2. The notice usually covers a specific issue about your account or tax return. It may request payment of taxes, notify you of a change to your account or ask for additional information.
  3. If you receive a notice about a correction to your tax return, you should review it carefully. You usually will need to compare the information in the notice to the entries on your tax return. Having a preparer explain will make the situation easier:
    If you agree with the correction, you usually don’t need to reply unless a payment is due.
    If you don’t agree with the correction the IRS made, it’s important that you respond as requested. Allow at least 30 days for a response from the IRS.
  4. There is no need for you to call or visit an IRS office to answer most IRS notices. If you have questions, call the telephone number in the upper right corner of the notice. When you call, have a copy of your tax return and the notice available.
  5. Keep copies of any correspondence with your tax records

Summerhill offers free consultation and reviews of Tax Notices at no-cost, you are invited to stop in or if you know anyone who is seeking tax help, be sure to tell them about our free consultations. If you can’t make it in-person simply call and ask for a phone appointment. In the meantime we would appreciate it if you kept your eyes and ears open for individuals seeking help with their tax issues.

Home Office – What Can I deduct?

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“Beware of scammers this Tax season”

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Tax Filer,

Do not! I repeat “Do Not” answer calls or emails that say on your caller ID that it is from the IRS.

Scammers this year are putting a new twist on old scriptures. They call by saying they are the IRS and they need to verify your identity in order to send you your refund.

The scammers have been able to manipulate the caller ID so that on your telephone it shows it’s a call from the IRS. They will try and persuade you to give them your personal information such as social security number, driver’s license, bank account numbers and credit card information.

There have been reports that they threaten people by saying they will revoke their license or call the authorities or even deport them if they don’t get your information, be aware that scammers will say fake badge numbers and names and might even have your name and address to try and make the call or email sound more realistic.

If you receive a call like that hang up quickly and do not click on that email and immediately contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to report the call. Use the “IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting” web page www.treasury.gov/tigta or call 1-800-366-4484.