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Archives for December 2020

What Is A Dependent For Tax Purposes?

What are the qualifying characteristics of a dependent for tax purposes? Following is a general explanation on how to determine dependents, and how it relates to your tax status, liability and the credits you can claim on your tax return.

There are a few assessments that a person must pass in order to qualify as a dependent on a U.S. tax return. For starters, individual must be the taxpayer’s child, stepchild, foster child, sibling or stepsibling, or a relative of one of these, and the individual must live at the taxpayer’s residence for greater than 6 months of the tax year. There are exceptions for children of divorced parents, kidnapped children, and for children who were born or died during the year. 

The individual must be under the age of 19, or 24 if a full-time student. Finally, the individual must not have contributed more than one-half toward his or her own support during that year in order to qualify as a dependent. Other qualifying points include, U.S. citizenship and single status or married filing as a single person. 

If the individual fulfills all of these requirements, then any of the applicable deductions, exemptions, and credits can be used for them. Some of these include dependent daycare expenses, child tax credits, medical expenses, earned income credit, and various itemized deductions. Determining eligibility often means the difference between owing money to the government and receiving a refund from them. 

The child and dependent care expenses cover things like daycare, after school programs, private childcare services, etc. Any qualifying children the child and dependent care expenses must be under the age of 13. 

The child tax credit is similar to the earned income credit because it is a straight credit. Taxpayers with a qualifying dependent that is under 17 years old may only take the child tax credit. 

Determining if you have any dependents that you can claim on your annual tax return might take a little work, but it can be well worth it in the long run. You could be rewarded with a nice tax refund, thanks to the credits, exemptions, and deductions that your dependent(s) will give you the opportunity to claim.

At Peavy and Associates PC our mission is to assist you with all your tax preparations, payroll and accounting needs.  We provide our clients with professional, personalized accounting services and guidance in a wide range of financial and business needs. Give us a call today and discover why our clients return to Peavy and Associates, PC year after year!

 

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tax brackets

Your Appeal Rights When Fighting The IRS

Are you in the middle of a disagreement with the IRS? One of the guaranteed rights for all taxpayers is the right to appeal. If you disagree with the IRS about the amount of your tax liability or about proposed collection actions, you have the right to ask the IRS Appeals Office to review your case. 

During their contact with taxpayers, IRS employees are required to explain and protect these taxpayer rights, including the right to appeal. The IRS appeals system is for people who do not agree with the results of an examination of their tax returns or other adjustments to their tax liability. In addition to examinations, you can appeal many other things, including: 

  1. Collection actions such as liens, levies, seizures, installment agreement terminations and rejected offers-in-compromise,
  2. Penalties and interest, and 
  3. Employment tax adjustments and the trust fund recovery penalty.

Internal IRS Appeal conferences are informal meetings. The local Appeals Office, which is independent of the IRS office, can sometimes resolve an appeal by telephone or through correspondence. 

The IRS also offers an option called Fast Track Mediation, during which an appeals or settlement officer attempts to help you and the IRS reach a mutually satisfactory solution. Most cases not docketed in court qualify for Fast Track Mediation. You may request Fast Track Mediation at the conclusion of an audit or collection determination, but prior to your request for a normal appeals hearing. Fast Track Mediation is meant to promote the early resolution of a dispute. It doesn’t eliminate or replace existing dispute resolution options, including your opportunity to request a conference with a manager or a hearing before Appeals. You may withdraw from the mediation process at any time.

When attending an informal meeting or pursuing mediation, you may represent yourself or you can be represented by an attorney, certified public accountant or individual enrolled to practice before the IRS. 

If you and the IRS appeals officer cannot reach an agreement, or if you prefer not to appeal within the IRS, in most cases you may take your disagreement to federal court. Usually, it is worth having a go at mediation before committing to an expensive and time-consuming court process.

At Peavy and Associates PC our mission is to assist you with all your tax preparations, payroll and accounting needs.  We provide our clients with professional, personalized accounting services and guidance in a wide range of financial and business needs. Give us a call today and discover why our clients return to Peavy and Associates, PC year after year!

 

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Profit and Loss

It might seem like a no-brainer to define just exactly what profit and loss are. But of course, these have definitions like everything else.  Profit can be called different things, for a start. It’s sometimes called net income or net earnings.  Businesses that sell products and services generate profit from the sales of those products or services and from controlling the attendant costs of running the business. Profit can also be referred to as Return on Investment, or ROI. While some definitions limit ROI to profit on investments in such securities as stocks or bonds, many companies use this term to refer to short-term and long-term business results. Profit is also sometimes called taxable income.

It’s the job of the accounting and finance professionals to assess the profits and losses of a company. They have to know what created both and what the results of both sides of the business equation are. They determine what the net worth of a company is. Net worth is the resulting dollar amount from deducting a company’s liabilities from its assets. In a privately held company, this is also called owner’s equity, since anything that’s left over after all the bills are paid, to put it simply, belongs to the owners. In a publicly held company, this profit is returned to the shareholders in the form of dividends. In other words, all liabilities have the first claim on any money the company makes. Anything that’s left over is profit. It’s not derived from one element or another. Net worth is determined after all the liabilities are deducted from all the assets, including cash and property. 

Showing a profit, or a positive figure on the balance sheet, is of course the aim of every business. It’s what our economy and society are built on. It doesn’t always work out that way. Economic trends and consumer behaviors change and it’s not always possible to predict these and what income they’ll have on a company’s performance.

At Peavy and Associates PC our mission is to assist you with all your tax preparations, payroll and accounting needs.  We provide our clients with professional, personalized accounting services and guidance in a wide range of financial and business needs. Give us a call today and discover why our clients return to Peavy and Associates, PC year after year!

 

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What are Independent Auditors?

Independent CPA auditors are like referees in the financial reporting arena. The CPA comes in, does an audit of the business’s accounting system and methods and gives a report that is attached to the company’s financial statements. Publicly owned businesses are required to have their annual financial reports audited by independent CPA firms and any privately owned businesses have audits done as well because they know that an audit report will add credibility to their financial reports.

An auditor judges whether the business’s accounting methods are in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Generally, everything is in place and the financial report is a reliable document. But at times an auditor will wave a yellow or red flag. Some indicators of potential trouble include when the business’s capability to continue normal operations is in doubt because of what are known as financial exigencies, which could mean a low cash balance, unpaid overdue liabilities, or major lawsuits that the business doesn’t have the cash to cover.

An auditor must exercise professional skepticism, meaning the auditor should challenge the accounting methods and reporting practices of the client in order to make sure that its financial statement conforms with accounting standards and are not misleading – in short, that the financial statement are fairly presented. Indeed, the words “fairly presented” are the exact words used in the auditor’s report.

A good auditor needs technical know-how, but also needs to know how to be tough on the accounting methods of the client. His job is to be the agent of the shareholders and other users of the business’s financial report. It’s incumbent on an auditor to strictly uphold GAAP, and not let any irregularities slide. 

There are a number of well-known companies that engaged in accounting fraud recently and that fraud was not discovered by the CPA auditors. Enron is one of these companies. In this case, the auditing firm, Arthur Anderson was found guilty of obstruction of justice because it destroyed audit evidence.

At Peavy and Associates PC our mission is to assist you with all your tax preparations, payroll and accounting needs.  We provide our clients with professional, personalized accounting services and guidance in a wide range of financial and business needs. Give us a call today and discover why our clients return to Peavy and Associates, PC year after year!

 

Contact Us Today

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