Financial Articles

Many American Voters do not understand the taxation debate around election time. They hear stories of businesses and rich folks getting big tax breaks and yet do not fully understand, although at first glance they feel that is somewhat unfair. What is very unfortunate is that many politicians will claim that only the rich get the tax breaks. But in reality what is happening is that government is rewarding people who have wealth to spend their money in a certain way to receive a tax break.

For instance if they buy a vehicle for business or an airplane they get a tax break. Why is this good for everyone? Because if a rich person who owns a business buys an airplane or an automobile then someone gets to have a job in Wichita, Kansas or Detroit or Ohio or Alabama. The people who work in those factories need that job to feed their families and maintain their standard of living and quality-of-life.

It’s unfortunate that more people don’t understand the taxation debate and even more unfortunate that people who do understand the taxation debate who are running for office misrepresent its intentions. Many times Democrats will complain that the tax cuts are too deep and government does not have enough money to give away money to the poor. But in reality the government wastes most of the money that it gets and very little ever gets to the poor people.

It would be better to have a tax cut for the poor people so they could have more money in their pockets to spend for themselves and keep the tax incentives for the rich too. When to poor or middle class people spend the money they would buy things and that too would provide more jobs for Americans. If the government gets all of the money they just waste it on ridiculous social programs and pet projects.

Often the social programs make people weak and this should be well understood by the Christian quote; Don’t Give a Man a Fish Teach Them to Fish. It is just too bad that people do not understand the taxation debate. If they raise our taxes how does that help us? The Democrats want to raise taxes and that would be a disaster for our economy. That just means we all have to pay more money to a government that is going to waste it. And so I ask the question why would anyone want to do that? Please consider all this in 2006.

Running a one-person business? Tired of the huge hit you take at tax time? Want to save money on your accounting and taxes? Consider these simple tips and tricks…

Tip 1: Use an accounting system

Oh sure. This sounds obvious. But unless you have a decent way to track both your income and your deductions, you not only won’t know how much money you’re making until tax time, you’ll also miss or forget about tax deductions.

Something like Quicken or Microsoft Money will work just fine. If you need more bookkeeping horsepower than these checkbook programs provide, look at stepping up to QuickBooks or Microsoft Small Business Accounting.

Tip 2: Don’t Incorporate

New business owners often rush to incorporate. But incorporation rarely makes sense for small businesses. And incorporation totally complicates your taxes and accounting.

What’s a new business owner to do? Form a limited liability company instead. A limited liability company, or LLC, gives you all the same liability protection. But without the tax complexity of a corporation.

An LLC with just one owner, for example, gets treated for income tax purposes as a sole proprietorship. Which means to report your business activity to the IRS or state revenue folks, all you do is file a simple, one- or two-page schedule with your regular individual tax return.

Tip: Consider hiring your kids

If you have minor children and they help you out in your business—doing real work—consider hiring them. As long as they earn less than $5,000, they won’t pay any income taxes on their wages nor any payroll taxes. Yet, you’ll still get to write-off the amounts you pay them as business expenses. (This might be a neat way to save for a kid’s college expenses.)

Tip 4: Consider hiring your spouse

While medical insurance is a deduction for income-tax purposes for sole proprietors, you can save far more in taxes by hiring your spouse and then setting up what’s called a Section 105(b) plan. Such a plan lets you treat all of your family’s medical expenses (insurance, out of pocket, deductibles and so on) deductions for both income tax purposes and self-employment tax purposes.

If you are interested in this, confer with a local tax practitioner. Section 105(b) plans can be a little tricky to understand if you haven’t used them before.

Tip 5: Take the home office deduction

Hey, if you regularly and exclusively use some portion of your home for your business, go ahead and take the home office deduction.

Don’t worry about this deduction being an audit flag. Or a hassle. The deduction is meant for people like you.

Tip 6: Set up a pension plan

If you want to save more than a regular IRA allows, set up a pension plan for your business. You can easily set up something like a SEP-IRA which will allow you to contribute up to twenty of your profit to a tax deferred account.

Example: If you make $50,000, you could use a SEP-IRA to contribute $10,000 to your pension account. And there are other good low-cost options available, too, such as SIMPLE-IRAs and one-person 401(k) plans.

To get more information on small business pension plans, contact the Vanguard Group at www.vanguard.com or Charles Schwab at www.schwab.com.

Tip 7: Learn and then use TurboTax or TaxCut

A final tip: In most cases, the taxes of sole proprietorship are pretty simple. So, rather than come to someone like me (a CPA) or an enrolled agent or one of those nationwide tax preparation firms, try doing your return yourself using tax software.

Programs like TurboTax and TaxCut work great for simple-situation sole proprietors.

The new bankruptcy law took effect recently and significantly changed the rules of filing bankruptcy. If you’re not sure exactly what these changes mean for you, read this article which lays out the basics of the new bankruptcy law.

The new bankruptcy law has brought about a number of changes to the filing process. Here are the major ones:

Credit Counseling The new bankruptcy law dictates that anyone who wants to file bankruptcy must complete credit counseling with an agency approved by the United States Trustee’s office. After the bankruptcy case has ended, filers must attend yet another counseling session to learn more about personal financial management.

Restricted Eligibility In the past, it was possible to choose between filing Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Under the new bankruptcy law, eligibility for filing Chapter 7 is based on income. A filer’s average income for the six months prior to filing bankruptcy must be below their state’s median income.

Property Values Under old bankruptcy law, those who filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy were allowed to place a value on their personal property based on what they could sell it for at an auction. The new bankruptcy law requires that property now be valued at replacement value. This puts increased value on the property and ensures that more filers will have their property taken and sold by a trustee.

State Exemptions Under new bankruptcy law, your state’s exemptions will apply only if you have lived in the state for two years. If you have been in the state for less than two years, you will receive the exemptions from the state that you lived in previously.