Month: May 2017

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5 questions single parents should ask about their estate plans

In many respects, estate planning for single parents of minor children is similar to estate planning for families with two parents. Single parents want to provide for their children’s care and financial needs after they’re gone. But when only one parent is involved, certain aspects of an estate plan demand special attention. If you’re a single parent, here are five questions you should ask:

1. Are my will and other estate planning documents up to date? If you haven’t reviewed your estate plan recently, do so as soon as possible to ensure that it reflects your current circumstances. The last thing you want is for a probate court to decide your children’s future.

2. Have I selected an appropriate guardian? If the other parent is unavailable to take custody of your children should you become incapacitated or die suddenly, does your estate plan designate a suitable, willing guardian to care for them? Will the guardian need financial assistance to raise your kids and provide for their education? If not, you might want to preserve your wealth in a trust until your children are grown.

3. Am I adequately insured? With only one income to depend on, plan carefully to ensure that you can provide for your retirement as well as your children’s financial security. Life insurance can be an effective way to augment your estate. You should also consider disability insurance. Unlike many married couples, single parents don’t have a “backup” income in the event they can no longer work.

4. What if I become incapacitated? As a single parent, it’s particularly important for you to include in your estate plan a living will or advance directive to specify your preferences for the use of life-sustaining medical procedures and a health care power of attorney to designate someone to make other medical decisions on your behalf. You should also have a revocable living trust or durable power of attorney that provides for the management of your finances.

5. Have I established a trust for my children? Trust planning is one of the most effective ways to provide for children regardless of their age. Trust assets are managed by one or more qualified, trusted individuals or corporate trustees, and you specify when and under what circumstances funds should be distributed to your kids. But a trust is particularly important if you have minor children. Without one, your assets may come under the control of your former spouse or a court-appointed administrator.

If you’re a single parent, we can help answer all of your estate planning questions.

© 2017

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What really motivates nonprofit donors

What do charitable donors want? The classic answer is: Go ask each one individually. However, research provides some insight into donor motivation that can help your not-for-profit grow its financial support.

Taxing matters

The biennial U.S. Trust® Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy, conducted in partnership with the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, regularly finds that wealthy donors are primarily motivated by philanthropy. The tax benefits of giving were cited by only 18% of respondents in the 2016 survey.

On its own, your organization has little control over tax rates or deductions. But by teaming up with other nonprofits, you can exercise influence over tax policy. For example, groups such as the Charitable Giving Coalition have been credited with helping to defeat congressional challenges to the charitable deduction. Some nonprofits also partner up to influence state legislation on charitable giving incentive caps. Just keep in mind that, to preserve your nonprofit’s tax-exempt status, political lobbying should be kept to a minimum.

Matching opportunity

Other research has found that donors are just as motivated by matching gifts as they are by tax benefits. A joint Australian and American study gave supporters a choice between a tax rebate and a matching donation to charity. Donors were evenly split between the two — but those opting for the match gave more generously than those who took the rebate.

If your nonprofit hasn’t already tried offering matching gifts, it’s worth testing. You’ll need to identify donors willing to use their large gift to incentivize others — reliable supporters such as board members or trustees. Consider using their gifts during short-lived fundraisers, where a “ticking clock” lends the offer greater urgency.

Other strategies can enable donors to stretch their giving dollars. For example, encourage your supporters to give appreciated stock or real estate. As long as the donors meet applicable rules, they can avoid the capital gains tax liability they’d incur if they sold the assets.

Don’t make assumptions

Donors can be motivated by many social, emotional and financial factors. So it’s important not to assume you know how your target audience will respond to certain types of fundraising appeals. Perform some basic research, asking major donors and their advisors about their philanthropic priorities. Contact us for more revenue-boosting ideas.

© 2017

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Helpful Articles Tax

Turning next year’s tax refund into cash in your pocket now

Each year, millions of taxpayers claim an income tax refund. To be sure, receiving a payment from the IRS for a few thousand dollars can be a pleasant influx of cash. But it means you were essentially giving the government an interest-free loan for close to a year, which isn’t the best use of your money.

Fortunately, there is a way to begin collecting your 2017 refund now: You can review the amounts you’re having withheld and/or what estimated tax payments you’re making, and adjust them to keep more money in your pocket during the year.

Reasons to modify amounts

It’s particularly important to check your withholding and/or estimated tax payments if:

  • You received an especially large 2016 refund,
  • You’ve gotten married or divorced or added a dependent,
  • You’ve purchased a home,
  • You’ve started or lost a job, or
  • Your investment income has changed significantly.

Even if you haven’t encountered any major life changes during the past year, changes in the tax law may affect withholding levels, making it worthwhile to double-check your withholding or estimated tax payments.

Making a change

You can modify your withholding at any time during the year, or even several times within a year. To do so, you simply submit a new Form W-4 to your employer. Changes typically will go into effect several weeks after the new Form W-4 is submitted. For estimated tax payments, you can make adjustments each time quarterly payments are due.

While reducing withholdings or estimated tax payments will, indeed, put more money in your pocket now, you also need to be careful that you don’t reduce them too much. If you don’t pay enough tax during the year, you could end up owing interest and penalties when you file your return, even if you pay your outstanding tax liability by the April 2018 deadline.

If you’d like help determining what your withholding or estimated tax payments should be for the rest of the year, please contact us.

© 2017

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Use pro formas to plot your route to success

Running a business is like going on a road trip — and a detailed business plan that includes a set of pro forma financials can serve as a road map or GPS app that improves your odds of arriving on time and on budget. If your plan doesn’t cover the prospective quantitative details in pro formas, expect to hit some bumps along the road to achieving your strategic goals.

What to include

Investors and lenders may require business plans from companies that are starting up, seeking additional funding, or restructuring to avoid bankruptcy. Beyond all of the verbiage in the executive summary, business description and market analysis, comprehensive business plans include at least three years of pro forma:

  • Balance sheets (projecting assets, liabilities and equity),
  • Income statements (projecting expected revenue, expenses, gains, losses and net profits), and
  • Cash flow statements (highlighting sources and uses of cash from operating, financing and investing activities).

Pro forma financial statements are the quantitative details that back up the qualitative portions of your business plan. Pro formas tell stakeholders that management is aware of when cash flow and capacity shortages are likely to occur and how sensitive the results are to changes in the underlying assumptions.

How to crunch the numbers

Unless you’re launching a start-up, historical financial statements are the usual starting point for pro forma financials. Historical statements tell where the company is now. The next step is to ask, “Where do we want to be in three, five or 10 years?” Long-term goals fuel the assumptions that, in turn, drive the pro formas.

For example, suppose a company with $5 million in sales wants that figure to double over a three-year period. How will it get from Point A ($5 million in 2016) to Point B ($10 million in 2019)? Many roads lead to the desired destination.

Management could, for example, hire new salespeople, acquire the assets of a bankrupt competitor, build a new plant or launch a new product line. Attach a “statement of assumptions” to your pro forma financials, which shows how you plan to achieve your goals and how the changes will flow through the financial statements.

Need help?

Running a company following a business plan that doesn’t include pro forma financials is like going on a road trip with an unreliable GPS app or a bad map: Pro formas help you monitor where you are, what alternate routes or side trips exist along the way, and how close you are to the final destination. We can help you prepare pro forma financial statements, compare expected to actual results and adjust your assumptions as needed.

© 2017

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3 hot spots to look for your successor

Picking someone to lead your company after you step down is probably among the hardest aspects of retiring (or otherwise moving on). Sure, there are some business owners who have a ready-made successor waiting in the wings at a moment’s notice. But many have a few viable candidates to consider — others have too few.

When looking for a successor, for best results, keep an open mind. Don’t assume you have to pick any one person — look everywhere. Here are three hot spots to consider.

1. Your family. If yours is a family-owned business, this is a natural place to first look for a successor. Yet, because of the relationships and emotions involved, finding a successor in the family can be particularly complex. Make absolutely sure a son, daughter or other family member really wants to succeed you. But also keep in mind that desire isn’t enough. The loved one must also have the proper qualifications, as well as experience inside and, ideally, outside the company.

2. Nonfamily employees. Keep an eye out for company “stars” who are still early in their careers, regardless of their functional or geographic area. Start developing their leadership skills as early as possible and put them to the test regularly. For example, as time goes on, continually create new projects or positions that give them responsibility for increasingly larger and more complex profit centers to see how they’ll measure up.

3. The wide, wide world. If a family member or current employee just isn’t feasible, you can always look externally. A good way to start is simply by networking with people in your industry, former employees and professional advisors. You can also try placing an ad in a newspaper or trade publication, or on an Internet job site. Don’t forget executive search firms either; they’ll help screen candidates and conduct interviews.

At the end of the day, any successor — whether family member, employee or external candidate — must have the right stuff. Please contact our firm for help setting up an effective succession plan.

© 2017

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Helpful Articles

5 accounting mistakes your nonprofit should avoid

To err is human, but your not-for-profit’s supporters, not to mention the IRS, may be less than forgiving if errors affect your financial books. Fortunately, if you attend to accounting details, you can avoid these common pitfalls:

1. Failing to follow accounting procedures. Even the smallest nonprofit should set formal, documented and detailed procedures for managing financial and bookkeeping chores. Your process should include all aspects of managing your organization’s money — how to accept, document and deposit donations, pay bills, and handle every step in between. Put these procedures in writing and make sure you follow each step, every time.

2. Making data entry errors. It’s easy to wreak havoc on your accounts by entering a $500 payment as $50 or transposing numbers. So check and double-check every entry every time. Reconcile accounts against bank statements immediately, and don’t overlook even the smallest discrepancy.

3. Working without a budget. You can’t control overspending or invest a surplus if you don’t know they exist. Budgets don’t have to be intricate to be useful; just look at a few months’ worth of bills and deposits to create a starting point. Then refine your plan as you go along. Include a “miscellaneous” category, but don’t allow it to account for the majority of your expenses.

4. Playing loose with petty cash. Small expenditures like picking up a few office supplies or buying a pizza for volunteers is much easier to do with a petty cash fund. Handle the cash with care, though. Lock it up, authorize only a few people to make disbursements and require receipts for all expenditures.

5. Neglecting to properly categorize. All money coming in and going out of your organization must be assigned to the appropriate category. This is particularly important if you accept donations that may be earmarked for certain programs. To be successful at this, you need to properly set up the initial chart of accounts and define how items should be assigned.

Contact us with any nonprofit financial question or if you need help devising organizationwide policies.

© 2017

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Helpful Articles Tax

Choosing between a calendar tax year and a fiscal tax year

Many business owners use a calendar year as their company’s tax year. It’s intuitive and aligns with most owners’ personal returns, making it about as simple as anything involving taxes can be. But for some businesses, choosing a fiscal tax year can make more sense.

What’s a fiscal tax year?

A fiscal tax year consists of 12 consecutive months that don’t begin on January 1 or end on December 31 — for example, July 1 through June 30 of the following year. The year doesn’t necessarily need to end on the last day of a month. It might end on the same day each year, such as the last Friday in March.

Flow-through entities (partnerships, S corporations and, typically, limited liability companies) using a fiscal tax year must file their return by the 15th day of the third month following the close of their fiscal year. So, if their fiscal year ends on March 31, they would need to file their return by June 15. (Fiscal-year C corporations generally must file their return by the 15th day of the fourth month following the fiscal year close.)

When a fiscal year makes sense

A key factor to consider is that if you adopt a fiscal tax year you must use the same time period in maintaining your books and reporting income and expenses. For many seasonal businesses, a fiscal year can present a more accurate picture of the company’s performance.

For example, a snowplowing business might make the bulk of its revenue between November and March. Splitting the revenue between December and January to adhere to a calendar year end would make obtaining a solid picture of performance over a single season difficult.

In addition, if many businesses within your industry use a fiscal year end and you want to compare your performance to your peers, you’ll probably achieve a more accurate comparison if you’re using the same fiscal year.

Before deciding to change your fiscal year, be aware that the IRS requires businesses that don’t keep books and have no annual accounting period, as well as most sole proprietorships, to use a calendar year.

It can make a difference

If your company decides to change its tax year, you’ll need to obtain permission from the IRS. The change also will likely create a one-time “short tax year” — a tax year that’s less than 12 months. In this case, your income tax typically will be based on annualized income and expenses. But you might be able to use a relief procedure under Section 443(b)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code to reduce your tax bill.

Although choosing a tax year may seem like a minor administrative matter, it can have an impact on how and when a company pays taxes. We can help you determine whether a calendar or fiscal year makes more sense for your business.

© 2017

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Acquaint yourself with the Roth IRA as an estate planning tool

A Roth IRA can be a valuable estate planning tool, offering the opportunity for tax-free growth as long as it exists and requiring no distributions during your life, thus allowing you to pass on a greater amount of wealth to your family. While traditional IRAs are more common, there’s no time like the present to consider how a Roth IRA might better help you achieve your estate planning goals.

Roth vs. traditional IRA

With a Roth IRA, you give up the deductibility of contributions for the opportunity to make tax-free withdrawals. This differs from a traditional IRA, where contributions may be deductible and earnings grow on a tax-deferred basis, but withdrawals (less any prorated nondeductible contributions) are subject to ordinary income taxes — plus a 10% penalty if you’re under age 59½ at the time of the distribution.

With a Roth IRA, you can make tax-free withdrawals up to the amount of your contributions at any time. And withdrawals of account earnings are tax-free if you make them after you’ve had the Roth IRA for five years and you’re age 59½ or older.

Also on the plus side, especially from an estate planning perspective, you can leave funds in your Roth IRA as long as you want. This differs from the required minimum distributions starting after age 70½ that generally apply to traditional IRAs.

So, with a Roth IRA, you can let the entire account grow tax-free over your lifetime for the benefit of one or more heirs. While the beneficiary will be required to take distributions, they’ll be tax-free and can be spread out over his or her lifetime, allowing the remaining assets in the account to continue to grow tax-free.

Limited contributions

For 2017, the annual Roth IRA contribution limit is $5,500 ($6,500 for taxpayers age 50 or older), reduced by any contributions made to traditional IRAs. Your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) may also affect your ability to contribute, however.

In 2017, the contribution limit phases out for married couples filing jointly with MAGIs between $186,000–$196,000. The 2017 phaseout range for single and head-of-household filers is $118,000–$133,000.

Conversion question

If your income is too high to contribute to a Roth IRA, consider converting your traditional IRA into a Roth, effectively turning future tax-deferred potential growth into tax-free potential growth. When you do a Roth conversion, you have to pay taxes on the amount you convert. But this also has an estate planning benefit because you’re paying taxes that your heirs might otherwise have to pay later.

If you have questions on how a Roth IRA may fit into your estate plan, please get in touch with us.

© 2017