Individuals have an important decision to make each year at tax time – hire a tax accountant or use software. The decision will depend largely on how complicated an individual’s financial situation is, their income, investments, stocks and other factors.

Tax Accountant

One of the major benefits of hiring a tax accountant is that minimizes the potential for an audit. That’s especially important for high-income earners and those with stocks and investments. The IRS audits approximately 4 percent of all returns. The chances increase for people making over $200,000 per year, business owners – especially sole proprietorships, the credits and deductions claimed, if foreign assets are involved, and the complexity of the return.

Anyone with those risk factors would do well to seek the services of a tax accountant. They’re highly trained professionals that are knowledgeable about all aspects of tax law. Individuals consulting a tax accountant for the first time are usually surprised at the number of legal deductions they’ve been missing. A tax accountant can also provide advice about tax planning to lower your tax burden and help manage finances more effectively.

Tax accountants have access to professional-level tax software that’s far more sophisticated than that available as a single purchase or online as a service. A tax accountant is available to answer questions and provide guidance throughout the year, not just at tax time. Complicated business and investment issues that can be handled with alacrity by a tax accountant can take individuals days or weeks to research.

Tax Software

Most people simply look at the cost of consumer tax software as a primary benefit. Software to install on a computer can cost as little as $50. Online tax software fees are based on the complexity of the services requested and are charged when the taxes are completed. Software solutions are less expensive but really aren’t designed for those with complex tax forms.

Using tax software is easy, user-friendly, and faster than the services of a tax accountant, who make take several days or a week to complete taxes. Tax accountants must deal with sometimes hundreds of clients one at a time, while software servers can accommodate millions of users at the same time.

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 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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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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A CMA is a Certified Management Accountant.  This is different from a Certified Public Accountant.  A Certified Management Accountant is employed by a business firm or a not-for-profit organization and deal with private accounting.

A CMA can obtain employment by companies, government, and non-for-profit entities.  A CMA can obtain employment as a Bookkeeper, Payroll Clerk, General Accountant, Budget Analyst, Cost Accountant, Internal Auditor, or Information Technology Auditor.  These CMA careers have starting salaries ranging from $28,500 to $72,500, which is much higher than the salary range for CPAs.  

A Bookkeeper does not need to have any certification and therefore does not have to be a CMA.  A Payroll Clerk must have certification called Certified Payroll Professional, or CPP, but does not need to be a CMA.  A general accountant or budget analyst may not be required to be a CMA, but many CMAs begin as a general accountant or budget analyst.  A Cost accountant must be a CMA and be licensed by whatever state agency monitors and regulates accountancy in that state. An Internal auditor must be a CMA and have an additional certification as a certified internal auditor, or CIA.  An Information technology auditor must be a CMA and also have certified information system auditor licensing, or CISA.

The certification program to become a CMA is sponsored by the Institute of Management Accountants or IMA.  The CMA certification is proof of competence in management accounting. To receive a CMA certification, you must have a college degree, two years of experience, and pass a two-day session of testing.  

A CMA does not have the versatility of a CPA.  Because a CMA works internally within a firm, the duties given to a CMA are fairly rote, meaning that the CMA does typically the same work each day.  On the other hand, a CPA has as much variety in the type of work and work duties as the variety of his or her clients. It is due to this fact that most accountants choose to obtain a CPA certification and licensing rather than a CMA certification and licensing.

Most CMAs are cost accountants.  A CMA cost accountant enters transactions into accounting records like journals and ledgers.  CMA cost accountants also prepare financial statements. The financial statements that the CMA prepares are vital to the business.  The financial statements that the CMA prepares are used for business decision making, investor decision making, competitive comparison, and searching for industry trends.  A CMA must also attempt to discover and correct any errors in the cost accounting records. This can be done in a number of ways but is always very tedious for the CMA.

A CMA should be found if you are starting a business that will require extensive and accurate bookkeeping and accounting.  You can save a lot of money in your business by hiring a CMA in house rather than using a CPA on a fee for service basis. In this way, you are left free to run your business while someone else worries about the accounting for your business

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