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If your kids are off to day camp, you may be eligible for a tax break

Now that most schools are out for the summer, you might be sending your children to day camp. It’s often a significant expense. The good news: You might be eligible for a tax break for the cost.

The value of a credit

Day camp is a qualified expense under the child and dependent care credit, which is worth 20% to 35% of qualifying expenses, subject to a cap. Note: Sleep-away camp does not qualify.

For 2019, the maximum expenses allowed for the credit are $3,000 for one qualifying child and $6,000 for two or more. Other expenses eligible for the credit include payments to a daycare center, nanny, or nursery school.

Keep in mind that tax credits are especially valuable because they reduce your tax liability dollar-for-dollar — $1 of tax credit saves you $1 of taxes. This differs from deductions, which simply reduce the amount of income subject to tax.

For example, if you’re in the 32% tax bracket, $1 of deduction saves you only $0.32 of taxes. So it’s important to take maximum advantage of all tax credits available to you.

Work-related expenses

For an expense to qualify for the credit, it must be related to employment. In other words, it must enable you to work — or look for work if you’re unemployed. It must also be for the care of your child, stepchild, foster child, or other qualifying relative who is under age 13, lives in your home for more than half the year and meets other requirements.

There’s no age limit if the dependent child is physically or mentally unable to care for him- or herself. Special rules apply if the child’s parents are divorced or separated or if the parents live apart.

Credit vs. FSA

If you participate in an employer-sponsored child and dependent care Flexible Spending Account (FSA), you can’t use expenses paid from or reimbursed by the FSA to claim the credit.

If your employer offers a child and dependent care FSA, you may wish to consider participating in the FSA instead of taking the credit. With an FSA for child and dependent care, you can contribute up to $5,000 on a pretax basis. If your marginal tax rate is more than 15%, participating in the FSA is more beneficial than taking the credit. That’s because the exclusion from income under the FSA gives a tax benefit at your highest tax rate, while the credit rate for taxpayers with adjusted gross income over $43,000 is limited to 20%.

Proving your eligibility

On your tax return, you must include the Social Security number of each child who attended the camp or received care. There’s no credit without it. You must also identify the organizations or persons that provided care for your child. So make sure to obtain the name, address and taxpayer identification number of the camp.

Additional rules apply to the child and dependent care credit. Contact us if you have questions. We can help determine your eligibility for the credit and other tax breaks for parents.

© 2019

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Hiring this summer? You may qualify for a valuable tax credit

Is your business hiring this summer? If the employees come from certain “targeted groups,” you may be eligible for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC). This includes youth whom you bring in this summer for two or three months. The maximum credit employers can claim is $2,400 to $9,600 for each eligible employee.
10 targeted groups
An employer is generally eligible for the credit only for qualified wages paid to members of 10 targeted groups:
  1. Qualified members of families receiving assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program
  2. Qualified veterans
  3. Designated community residents who live in Empowerment Zones or rural renewal counties
  4. Qualified ex-felons
  5. Vocational rehabilitation referrals
  6. Qualified summer youth employees
  7. Qualified members of families in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
  8. Qualified Supplemental Security Income recipients
  9. Long-term family assistance recipients
  10. Qualified individuals who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer
For each employee, there’s also a minimum requirement that the employee have completed at least 120 hours of service for the employer, and that employment begins before January 1, 2020. Also, the credit isn’t available for certain employees who are related to the employer or work more than 50% of the time outside of a trade or business of the employer (for example, working as a house cleaner in the employer’s home). And it generally isn’t available for employees who have previously worked for the employer.
Calculate the savings
For employees other than summer youth employees, the credit amount is calculated under the following rules. The employer can take into account up to $6,000 of first-year wages per employee ($10,000 for “long-term family assistance recipients” and/or $12,000, $14,000 or $24,000 for certain veterans). If the employee completed at least 120 hours but less than 400 hours of service for the employer, the wages taken into account are multiplied by 25%. If the employee completed 400 or more hours, all of the wages taken into account are multiplied by 40%. Therefore, the maximum credit available for the first-year wages is $2,400 ($6,000 × 40%) per employee. It is $4,000 [$10,000 × 40%] for “long-term family assistance recipients”; $4,800, $5,600 or $9,600 [$12,000, $14,000 or $24,000 × 40%] for certain veterans. In order to claim a $9,600 credit, a veteran must be certified as being entitled to compensation for a service-connected disability and be unemployed for at least six months during the one-year period ending on the hiring date. Additionally, for “long-term family assistance recipients,” there’s a 50% credit for up to $10,000 of second-year wages, resulting in a total maximum credit, over two years, of $9,000 [$10,000 × 40% plus $10,000 × 50%].
The “first year” described above is the year-long period which begins with the employee’s first day of work. The “second year” is the year that immediately follows. For summer youth employees, the rules described above apply, except that you can only take into account up to $3,000 of wages, and the wages must be paid for services performed during any 90-day period between May 1 and September 15. That means that, for summer youth employees, the maximum credit available is $1,200 ($3,000 × 40%) per employee. Summer youth employees are defined as those who are at least 16 years old, but under 18 on the hiring date or May 1 (whichever is later), and reside in an Empowerment Zone, enterprise community or renewal community.
We can help
The WOTC can offset the cost of hiring qualified new employees. There are some additional rules that, in limited circumstances, prohibit the credit or require an allocation of the credit. And you must fill out and submit paperwork to the government. Contact us for assistance or more information about your situation.  © 2019
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The Big Picture

Fight money laundering with visual analytics

Money laundering is an insidious and ever-present issue for community banks. Rapidly advancing technology enables criminals to invent new ways of gaming the system. But that same technological progress, in the form of data visualization software, can give your community bank an edge in detecting and preventing money laundering and ensuring your institution’s compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML)

Compliance

Banks that fail to take reasonable steps to detect and prevent money-laundering activity risk government fines. They also may receive severe negative publicity that harms their reputations.

Several developments over the past few years reflect the federal banking agencies’ increasing concern about BSA/AML compliance efforts. For one thing, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) introduced customer due diligence (CDD) rules that require institutions to incorporate beneficial ownership identification requirements into existing CDD policies and procedures.

In 2016, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) alerted banks to increasing BSA/AML risks associated with technological developments and new product offerings in the banking industry. In addition, regulators increasingly have been scrutinizing automated monitoring systems used by banks to detect suspicious activity to ensure that they’re configured properly.

For several years now, regulators haven’t limited their heightened scrutiny to larger banks. In fact, some large banks have restricted certain customers’ activities or closed their accounts because of BSA/AML concerns. As a result, higher-risk customers often have moved to smaller banks with less experience managing the associated BSA/AML risks.

Visual analytics

Data visualization software — also known as visual analytics — can be a powerful AML tool. Traditional AML software products and methods do a good job of detecting known AML issues. But data visualization software, which is commonly used as an antifraud weapon, excels at spotting new or unknown AML activity.

As criminal activity becomes more sophisticated and more difficult to detect, traditional AML software or methods may no longer be enough. Data visualization software creates visual representations of data. These representations may take many different forms, from pie charts and bar graphs to scatterplots, decision trees and geospatial maps. Visualization helps banks identify suspicious patterns, relationships, trends or anomalies that are difficult to spot using traditional tools alone. It’s particularly useful in identifying new or emerging risks before they do lasting damage.

Criminal enterprises that wish to launder money typically use multiple entities and multiple bank accounts, both domestic and foreign. Using data visualization software, banks can map out the flow of funds across various accounts, identifying relationships between accounts and the entities associated with them. Data visualization can reveal clusters of interrelated entities that would be difficult and time-consuming to spot using traditional methods.

These clusters or other relationships don’t necessarily indicate criminal activity. But they help focus a bank’s AML efforts by pinpointing suspicious activities that warrant further investigation.

Money-laundering maps

To counter today’s sophisticated money-laundering schemes, community banks need to consolidate their databases and stay up to date on the latest technological tools at their disposal. By using data visualization software to map trends, clusters and relationships that would be difficult to discern otherwise, community banks can more quickly and easily detect potential money-laundering activities — and take steps to head them off.

© 2019

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National Small Business Week

As part of National Small Business Week (May 5-11), the IRS issued a reminder about a change in backup withholding. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the backup withholding tax rate dropped from 28% to 24%. Backup withholding applies in various situations, including when a taxpayer fails to supply a correct taxpayer identification number (TIN) to a payer. Usually, a TIN is a Social Security number, but in some cases, it can be an employer identification number, individual taxpayer identification number or adoption taxpayer identification number. Backup withholding also applies when a taxpayer under-reported interest or dividend income on a federal tax return.

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Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019

Top Republicans on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee introduced legislation on 3/29/19 that is designed to help strengthen Americans’ long-term financial security.

If it passes, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019 would expand opportunities for Americans to increase their retirement savings. It would also repeal the maximum age for making traditional IRA contributions and improve the portability of lifetime income options from one plan to another. To read the text of the bill: https://bit.ly/2I2Bkok

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What Does the New Lease Accounting Standard Mean for Banks?

Abstract: The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new lease accounting standard takes effect this year for public business entities — and fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, for other organizations. The new standard may affect banks in two ways: First, it will cause many customers’ balance sheets to swell, which may cause some customers to violate loan covenants. Second, it will have an impact on banks’ own balance sheets, which may affect their capital ratios. This article discusses the ins and outs of the new standard, while a sidebar explains how to add flexibility to loan covenants.
What does the new lease accounting standard mean for banks?
The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB’s) new lease accounting standard, nearly 13 years in the making, finally takes effect this year for public business entities — and fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, for other organizations. By eliminating off-balance-sheet treatment for most operating leases, the new standard may affect banks in two ways: First, it will cause many customers’ balance sheets to swell, which may cause some customers to violate loan covenants. Second, it will have an impact on banks’ own balance sheets, which may affect their capital ratios.
A brief refresher
Under the previous lease accounting standard, leases were classified either as “capital” or “operating” leases. Generally, capital leases transfer ownership of assets to the lessee, while operating leases transfer the right to use assets during the lease term. Capital leases are reported on the balance sheet, but operating leases are not — though they’re disclosed in the financial statement footnotes.
The new standard retains the distinction between operating and capital leases (now called “finance” leases), but requires all leases, other than short-term operating leases (those with terms under one year), to be reported on the balance sheet. For each lease on the balance sheet, a lessee will record 1) a liability reflecting its obligation to make lease payments, and 2) an asset reflecting its legal right to use the leased property (a “right-of-use” or ROU asset). Both are based on the present value of minimum payments under the lease, with adjustments to the ROU asset for certain prepayments, incentives and costs.
Expense recognition under the new standard depends on a lease’s classification. For finance leases, organizations amortize the ROU asset, generally on a straight-line basis, and recognize interest expense and liability repayment over the life of the lease, similar to a loan. For operating leases, organizations generally recognize lease expenses on a straight-line basis, with certain adjustments.
Impact on loan covenants
As the new standard takes effect, borrowers with significant operating leases will experience an immediate increase in assets and liabilities on their balance sheets. As a result, some loan customers may be in technical violation of loan covenants that place limits on their overall debt or require them to maintain certain debt-related financial ratios. Banks should review all loan covenants to evaluate the impact of the new standard.
Whether it will have an adverse impact on borrowers depends in part on how “debt” is defined in the loan documents. The FASB, recognizing that the new standard might create issues with loan covenants, provided for operating lease liabilities to be characterized as “operating liabilities,” rather than “debt.” This action should prevent violations of some commonly used loan covenants. However, covenants that rely on financial ratios that include operating lease liabilities may present a problem.
Banks should consider modifying existing loan covenants to avoid unnecessary breaches and revise covenants going forward to reflect the new lease accounting standard. (See “Adding flexibility to your loan covenants.”) It’s important to recognize that the addition of operating leases to the balance sheet doesn’t change a borrower’s underlying economic situation, cash flow or ability to repay a loan. After all, in most cases, the borrower has been making these lease payments for years — the new standard merely changes the way they’re reported.
Impact on bank capital
For most community banks, the new lease accounting standard isn’t likely to have a significant impact on regulatory capital. But it may affect some banks with substantial operating leases for facilities, equipment and other fixed assets.
This is because the addition of ROU assets to the balance sheet may affect the ratio of capital to risk-weighted assets. The ratio is used to determine capital adequacy.
Some recommendations
All banks should review their loan documents and modify them if necessary to prevent inadvertent violations of loan covenants. They should also assess the impact of the new standard, if any, on their regulatory capital levels.

Sidebar: Adding flexibility to your loan covenants
The new lease accounting standard demonstrates how changes in financial reporting can affect compliance with loan covenants, even if the underlying economics are the same. As you review existing loan documents and negotiate new ones, consider incorporating covenant models that provide the flexibility needed to adapt to future changes in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Two common approaches are:
1. Frozen GAAP. Covenants that contain a frozen GAAP clause provide that changes in financial ratios resulting from changes in GAAP won’t cause a violation. In other words, applicable GAAP is frozen as of the date the loan is made. The problem with this approach is that continuing to apply GAAP that’s in effect at the time the loan agreement is executed, regardless of future changes, essentially requires two sets of books: one to comply with GAAP and one to track compliance with loan covenants.
2. Semifrozen GAAP. A semifrozen GAAP clause requires the parties to renegotiate the loan covenant if a change in GAAP alters financial ratios. This approach avoids the need to keep two sets of books. But it requires the parties to amend the covenant to accommodate their respective needs while reflecting changes in GAAP.
© 2019

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4 Pillars of a Solid Sales Process

Is your sales process getting off-balance? Sometimes it can be hard to tell. Fluctuations in the economy, changes in customer interest and dips in demand may cause slowdowns that are beyond your control. But if the numbers keep dropping and you’re not sure why, you may need to double-check the structural soundness of how you sell your company’s products or services. Here are four pillars of a solid sales process:

1. Synergy with marketing. The sales staff can’t go it alone. Your marketing department has a responsibility to provide some assistance and direction in generating leads. You may have a long-standing profile of the ideal candidates for your products or services, but is it outdated? Could it use some tweaks? Creating a broader universe of customers who are likely to benefit from your offerings will add focus and opportunity to your salespeople’s efforts.

2. Active responsiveness. A sense of urgency is crucial to the sales process. Whether a prospect responded to some form of advertisement or is being targeted for cold calling, making timely and appropriate contact will ease the way for the salesperson to get through to the decision maker. If selling your product or service requires a face-to-face presence, making and keeping of appointments is critical. Gather data on how quickly your salespeople are following up on leads and make improvements as necessary.

3. Clear documentation. There will always be some degree of recordkeeping associated with sales. Your salespeople will interact with many potential customers and must keep track of what was said or promised at each part of the sales cycle. Fortunately, today’s technology (typically in the form of a customer relationship system) can help streamline this activity. Make sure yours is up to date and properly used. Effective performers spend most of their time calling or meeting with customers. They carry out the administrative parts of their jobs either early or late in the day and don’t use paperwork as an excuse to avoid actively selling.

4. Consistency. A process is defined as a series of related steps that lead to a specific end. Lagging sales are often the result of deficiencies in steps of the sales process. If your business is struggling to maintain or increase its numbers, it may be time to audit your sales process to identify irregularities. You might also hold a sales staff retreat to get everyone back on the same page. Contact us to discuss these and other ideas on reinforcing your sales process.

© 2018

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Do your long-term customers know everything about you?

A technician at a mobility equipment supplier was servicing the motorized wheelchair of a long-time customer and noticed it was a brand-new model. “Where did you buy the chair?” he asked the customer. “At the health care supply store on the other side of town,” the customer replied. The technician paused and then asked, “Well, why didn’t you buy the chair from us?” The customer replied, “I didn’t know you sold wheelchairs.”

Look deeper

Most business owners would likely agree that selling to existing customers is much easier than finding new ones. Yet many companies continue to squander potential sales to long-term, satisfied customers simply because they don’t create awareness of all their products and services.

It seems puzzling that the long-time customer in our example wouldn’t know that his wheelchair service provider also sold wheelchairs. But when you look a little deeper, it’s easy to understand why.

The repair customer always visited the repair shop, which had a separate entrance. While the customer’s chair was being repaired, he sat in the waiting area, which provided a variety of magazines but no product brochures or other promotional materials. The customer had no idea that a new sales facility was on the other side of the building until the technician asked about the new wheelchair.

Be inquisitive

Are you losing business from long-term customers because of a similar disconnect? To find out, ask yourself two fundamental questions:

1. Are your customers buying everything they need from you? To find the answer, you must thoroughly understand your customers’ needs. Identify your top tier of customers — say, the 20% who provide 80% of your revenue. What do they buy from you? What else might they need? Don’t just take orders from them; learn everything you can about their missions, strategic plans and operations.

2. Are your customers aware of everything you offer? The quickest way to learn this is, simply, to ask. Instruct your salespeople to regularly inquire about whether customers would be interested in products or services they’ve never bought. Also, add flyers, brochures or catalogs to orders when you fulfill them. Consider building greater awareness by hosting free lunches or festive corporate events to educate your customers on the existence and value of your products and services.

Raise awareness

If you have long-term customers, you must be doing something right — and that’s to your company’s credit. But, remember, it’s not out of the question that you could lose any one of those customers if they’re unaware of your full spectrum of products and services. That’s an open opportunity for a competitor.

By taking steps to raise awareness of your products and services, you’ll put yourself in a better position to increase sales and profitability. Our firm can help you identify your strongest revenue sources and provide further ideas for enhancing them.

© 2018

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Fundamental tax truths for C corporations

The flat 21% federal income tax rate for C corporations under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has been great news for these entities and their owners. But some fundamental tax truths for C corporations largely remain the same:

C corporations are subject to double taxation. Double taxation occurs when corporate income is taxed once at the corporate level and again at the shareholder level as dividends are paid out. The cost of double taxation, however, is now generally less because of the 21% corporate rate.

 

And double taxation isn’t a problem when a C corporation needs to retain all its earnings to finance growth and capital investments. Because all the earnings stay “inside” the corporation, no dividends are paid to shareholders, and, therefore, there’s no double taxation.

Double taxation also isn’t an issue when a C corporation’s taxable income levels are low. This can often be achieved by paying reasonable salaries and bonuses to shareholder-employees and providing them with tax-favored fringe benefits (deductible by the corporation and tax-free to the recipient shareholder-employees).

C corporation status isn’t generally advisable for ventures with appreciating assets or certain depreciable assets. If assets such as real estate are eventually sold for substantial gains, it may be impossible to extract the profits from the corporation without being subject to double taxation. In contrast, if appreciating assets are held by a pass-through entity (such as an S corporation, partnership or limited liability company treated as a partnership for tax purposes), gains on such sales will be taxed only once, at the owner level.

But assets held by a C corporation don’t necessarily have to appreciate in value for double taxation to occur. Depreciation lowers the tax basis of the property, so a taxable gain results whenever the sale price exceeds the depreciated basis. In effect, appreciation can be caused by depreciation when depreciable assets hold their value.

To avoid this double-taxation issue, you might consider using a pass-through entity to lease to your C corporation appreciating assets or depreciable assets that will hold their value.

C corporation status isn’t generally advisable for ventures that will incur ongoing tax losses. When a venture is set up as a C corporation, losses aren’t passed through to the owners (the shareholders) like they would be in a pass-through entity. Instead, they create corporate net operating losses (NOLs) that can be carried over to future tax years and then used to offset any corporate taxable income.

This was already a potential downside of C corporations, because it can take many years for a start-up to be profitable. Now, under the TCJA, NOLs that arise in tax years beginning after 2017 can’t offset more than 80% of taxable income in the NOL carryover year. So it may take even longer to fully absorb tax losses.

Do you have questions about C corporation tax issues post-TCJA? Contact us.

© 2019

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A refresher on major tax law changes for small-business owners

The dawning of 2019 means the 2018 income tax filing season will soon be upon us. After year end, it’s generally too late to take action to reduce 2018 taxes. Business owners may, therefore, want to shift their focus to assessing whether they’ll likely owe taxes or get a refund when they file their returns this spring, so they can plan accordingly.

With the biggest tax law changes in decades — under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) — generally going into effect beginning in 2018, most businesses and their owners will be significantly impacted. So, refreshing yourself on the major changes is a good idea.

Taxation of pass-through entities

 

These changes generally affect owners of S corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies (LLCs) treated as partnerships, as well as sole proprietors:

  • Drops of individual income tax rates ranging from 0 to 4 percentage points (depending on the bracket) to 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%
  • A new 20% qualified business income deduction for eligible owners (the Section 199A deduction)
  • Changes to many other tax breaks for individuals that will impact owners’ overall tax liability

Taxation of corporations

These changes generally affect C corporations, personal service corporations (PSCs) and LLCs treated as C corporations:

  • Replacement of graduated corporate rates ranging from 15% to 35% with a flat corporate rate of 21%
  • Replacement of the flat PSC rate of 35% with a flat rate of 21%
  • Repeal of the 20% corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT)

Tax break positives

These changes generally apply to both pass-through entities and corporations:

  • Doubling of bonus depreciation to 100% and expansion of qualified assets to include used assets
  • Doubling of the Section 179 expensing limit to $1 million and an increase of the expensing phaseout threshold to $2.5 million
  • A new tax credit for employer-paid family and medical leave

Tax break negatives

These changes generally also apply to both pass-through entities and corporations:

  • A new disallowance of deductions for net interest expense in excess of 30% of the business’s adjusted taxable income (exceptions apply)
  • New limits on net operating loss (NOL) deductions
  • Elimination of the Section 199 deduction (not to be confused with the new Sec.199A deduction), which was for qualified domestic production activities and commonly referred to as the “manufacturers’ deduction”
  • A new rule limiting like-kind exchanges to real property that is not held primarily for sale (generally no more like-kind exchanges for personal property)
  • New limitations on deductions for certain employee fringe benefits, such as entertainment and, in certain circumstances, meals and transportation

Preparing for 2018 filing

Keep in mind that additional rules and limits apply to the rates and breaks covered here. Also, these are only some of the most significant and widely applicable TCJA changes; you and your business could be affected by other changes as well. Contact us to learn precisely how you might be affected and for help preparing for your 2018 tax return filing — and beginning to plan for 2019, too.

© 2018