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Five Strategies for Tax-Efficient Investing

June 15, 2019 by Admin

Jackson & Associates Individual TaxAs just about every investor knows, it’s not what your investments earn, but what they earn after taxes that counts. After factoring in federal income and capital gains taxes, the alternative minimum tax, and any applicable state and local taxes, your investments’ returns in any given year may be reduced by 40% or more.

For example, if you earned an average 6% rate of return annually on an investment taxed at 24%, your after-tax rate of return would be 4.56%. A $50,000 investment earning 8% annually would be worth $89,542 after 10 years; at 4.56%, it would be worth only $78,095. Reducing your tax liability is key to building the value of your assets, especially if you are in one of the higher income tax brackets. Here are five ways to potentially help lower your tax bill.1

Invest in Tax-Deferred and Tax-Free Accounts

Tax-deferred accounts include company-sponsored retirement savings accounts such as traditional 401(k) and 403(b) plans, traditional individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and annuities. Contributions to these accounts may be made on a pretax basis (i.e., the contributions may be tax deductible) or on an after-tax basis (i.e., the contributions are not tax deductible). More important, investment earnings compound tax deferred until withdrawal, typically in retirement, when you may be in a lower tax bracket. Contributions to nonqualified annuities, Roth IRAs, and Roth-style employer-sponsored savings plans are not tax deductible. Earnings that accumulate in Roth accounts can be withdrawn tax free if you have held the account for at least five years and meet the requirements for a qualified distribution.

Pitfalls to avoid: Withdrawals prior to age 59½ from a qualified retirement plan, IRA, Roth IRA, or annuity may be subject not only to ordinary income tax but also to an additional 10% federal tax. In addition, early withdrawals from annuities may be subject to additional penalties charged by the issuing insurance company. Also, if you have significant investments, in addition to money you contribute to your retirement plans, consider your overall portfolio when deciding which investments to select for your tax-deferred accounts. If your effective tax rate — that is, the average percentage of income taxes you pay for the year — is higher than 12%, you’ll want to evaluate whether investments that earn most of their returns in the form of long-term capital gains might be better held outside of a tax-deferred account. That’s because withdrawals from tax-deferred accounts generally will be taxed at your ordinary income tax rate, which may be higher than your long-term capital gains tax rate (see “Income vs. Capital Gains”).

Income vs. Capital Gains

Generally, interest income is taxed as ordinary income in the year received, and qualified dividends are taxed at a top rate of 20%. (Note that an additional 3.8% tax on investment income also may apply to both interest income and qualified (or nonqualified) dividends.) A capital gain or loss — the difference between the cost basis of a security and its current price — is not taxed until the gain or loss is realized. For individual stocks and bonds, you realize the gain or loss when the security is sold. However, with mutual funds, you may have received taxable capital gains distributions on shares you own. Investments you (or the fund manager) have held 12 months or less are considered short term, and those capital gains are taxed at the same rates as ordinary income. For investments held more than 12 months (considered long term), capital gains are taxed at no more than 20%, although an additional 3.8% tax on investment income may apply. The actual rate will depend on your tax bracket and how long you have owned the investment.

Consider Government and Municipal Bonds

Interest on U.S. government issues is subject to federal taxes but is exempt from state taxes. Municipal bond income is generally exempt from federal taxes, and municipal bonds issued in-state may be free of state and local taxes as well. An investor in the 32% federal income tax bracket would have to earn 7.35% on a taxable bond, before state taxes, to equal the tax-exempt return of 5% offered by a municipal bond. Sold prior to maturity or bought through a bond fund, government and municipal bonds are subject to market fluctuations and may be worth less than the original cost upon redemption.

Pitfalls to avoid: If you live in a state with high state income tax rates, be sure to compare the true taxable-equivalent yield of government issues, corporate bonds, and in-state municipal issues. Many calculations of taxable-equivalent yield do not take into account the state tax exemption on government issues. Because interest income (but not capital gains) on municipal bonds is already exempt from federal taxes, there’s generally no need to keep them in tax-deferred accounts. Finally, income derived from certain types of municipal bond issues, known as private activity bonds, may be a tax-preference item subject to the federal alternative minimum tax.

Look for Tax-Efficient Investments

Tax-managed or tax-efficient investment accounts and mutual funds are managed in ways that may help reduce their taxable distributions. Investment managers may employ a combination of tactics, such as minimizing portfolio turnover, investing in stocks that do not pay dividends, and selectively selling stocks that have become less attractive at a loss to counterbalance taxable gains elsewhere in the portfolio. In years when returns on the broader market are flat or negative, investors tend to become more aware of capital gains generated by portfolio turnover, since the resulting tax liability can offset any gain or exacerbate a negative return on the investment.

Pitfalls to avoid: Taxes are an important consideration in selecting investments but should not be the primary concern. A portfolio manager must balance the tax consequences of selling a position that will generate a capital gain versus the relative market opportunity lost by holding a less-than-attractive investment. Some mutual funds that have low turnover also inherently carry an above-average level of undistributed capital gains. When you buy these shares, you effectively buy this undistributed tax liability.

Put Losses to Work

At times, you may be able to use losses in your investment portfolio to help offset realized gains. It’s a good idea to evaluate your holdings periodically to assess whether an investment still offers the long-term potential you anticipated when you purchased it. Your realized capital losses in a given tax year must first be used to offset realized capital gains. If you have “leftover” capital losses, you can offset up to $3,000 against ordinary income. Any remainder can be carried forward to offset gains or income in future years, subject to certain limitations.

Pitfalls to avoid: A few down periods don’t necessarily mean you should sell simply to realize a loss. Stocks in particular are long-term investments subject to ups and downs. However, if your outlook on an investment has changed, you may be able to use a loss to your advantage.

Keep Good Records

Keep records of purchases, sales, distributions, and dividend reinvestments so that you can properly calculate the basis of shares you own and choose the shares you sell in order to minimize your taxable gain or maximize your deductible loss.

Pitfalls to avoid: If you overlook mutual fund dividends and capital gains distributions that you have reinvested, you may accidentally pay the tax twice — once on the distribution and again on any capital gains (or underreported loss) — when you eventually sell the shares.

Keeping an eye on how taxes can affect your investments is one of the easiest ways you can enhance your returns over time. For more information about the tax aspects of investing, consult a qualified tax advisor.

Source/Disclaimer:

1Example does not include taxes or fees. This information is general in nature and is not meant as tax advice. Always consult a qualified tax advisor for information as to how taxes may affect your particular situation.

Send us an e-mail or call us today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your tax needs with an experienced Largo CPA.

Filed Under: Individual Tax

5 Steps to the Successful Multi-Office Business

May 29, 2019 by Admin

Jackson & Associates Business TaxYour company is expanding — and that’s great! You’ve grown from one office to two, three, or even more. But you need to be able to manage all of them to continue to grow. Click through for some help in multi-office management.

Each new office seems deserving of all your time, but there are still your existing offices, whose need for attention hasn’t diminished. Building, disseminating and maintaining a cohesive business strategy across multiple sites is a challenge, but you need to get it right to continue to be successful.

Step one: Information needs to be shared.

This means that no one is behind on information, and you create a sense of community. Technology makes this happen because it allows immediate, widespread communication. You must ensure that there is one main method of digital communication — inconsistently used initiatives quickly become difficult to manage effectively. Use the one tool that works well and commit to communicating relatively frequently through it. You may want to send a brief weekly email newsletter to all staff. The tricky part is working across time zones, so if possible, send official communications when all offices are open.

Step two: Your leadership team is your greatest asset.

Employing an excellent senior management team to undertake communication on the company’s behalf is as important as digital communications. Have a senior management team member assist in running the firm, coordinating each office to provide local leadership. It’s wise to have a strong chain of command and a team that integrates as much as possible with each other to keep everyone informed about work across the company. Strong departmental management complements the businesswide strategic vision.

Step three: Timing is everything.

It’s essential to maintain a top-level presence across all offices and to be a recognizable face to all employees. If your company is based in one region, try to visit each office every month. If your firm is spread across the country, visit every two or three months. Time your visits within a week of each other and give a little more attention in your weekly email newsletter to any office that hasn’t been visited in a timely manner.

It makes sense to prioritize visits according to the size of the office, while maintaining a high level of inclusion in digital communications to show staff that they are highly valued.

Step four: Integrate wherever possible.

Encourage cross-office collaboration to develop a wider understanding of the business as a whole. It’s healthy to work with a number of different people and conducive to caring about the business beyond each office’s four walls. One means of doing this is to give staff opportunities to shape the company’s image, such as by participating in brand workshops or to be personally involved in company improvements.

Step five: Don’t be afraid to try something new.

Always try new things and commit to change. What suits one business may not suit another. Be prepared to innovate to find what works for you. That’s why building a personal relationship with as many employees as possible works — you’re giving people a chance to mix with others they would never normally work with.

Don’t forget the value of old-fashioned face time among and across teams. By encouraging this, you will contribute to successful integration and a corporate culture across geographies. Local offices need to be held accountable for quality control, scheduling and improving systems, and such efficiencies may work companywide.

All of this can seem like a lot of hard work, but splitting time between offices and building a system of shared information is crucial to the overall success of multi-office businesses. By trying to achieve equilibrium, you create a happy workforce that delivers the best results.

Send us an e-mail or call us today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your tax needs with an experienced Largo CPA.

Filed Under: Business Accounting

How to Deal with Unclaimed Checks

April 18, 2019 by Admin

Jackson & Associates, CPA, PAMaybe it was lost, or got tossed out. Maybe the dog ate it. While it may be hard to understand how payroll checks can go uncashed, it happens. Unclaimed wages (and other property, such as commission checks, shareholder dividends, checks to vendors, and unredeemed gift cards) create problems for businesses — and revenue opportunities for cash-strapped state governments. That could be an unfortunate combination if your company isn’t in full compliance with state law.

When Wages Go Unclaimed

Generally speaking, businesses are not permitted to hold onto uncashed checks indefinitely. Each state has its own laws regarding unclaimed property, and employers must follow the rules for reporting and remitting such property to the state.

Most states consider unclaimed wages to be abandoned after a year. During that period, employers must make a good faith effort to contact the wage earner so the property can be claimed. If these attempts fail, employers must turn over the abandoned wages to the appropriate state agency.

States Want to Know

To supplement tax revenues, states have generally been stepping up their audit and enforcement efforts regarding abandoned property. For businesses, the cost of noncompliance can be quite high, especially if they haven’t been keeping reliable records. In the absence of records, auditors may — and often do — estimate a business’s liability, which may result in an exaggerated assessment.

Protect Your Business

In addition to paychecks, you might have other unclaimed property to contend with, too. Take steps to protect yourself by putting someone in charge of handling your business’s unclaimed property, keeping accurate records, regularly filing required reports of unclaimed property with the appropriate state agency, and promptly turning over any unclaimed property according to state law. Your time and effort will be well spent if it helps avoid costly problems in the future.

Send us an e-mail or call us today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your business needs with an experienced Largo CPA. Click here for a Free Consultation.

Filed Under: Business Accounting

Important Facts About the New Laws on Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction

March 28, 2019 by Admin

Jackson & Associates CPA, PAIf you are one of the millions of Americans who own your own home, you should be thinking about how President Trump’s latest tax bill helps or dents your finances; particularly when it comes to the ever-popular mortgage interest deductions. This article should put you ahead of the subject.

First off, if you are a homeowner with no intentions of changing anything soon, your mortgage deductions are unaffected (with a couple of exceptions we deal with below).

The new laws apply only to those buying a home after 15th December 2017. If you fall into this category it boils down to understanding 3 key items:

  • There’s a cap of $750,000 (previously $1 million) on your total mortgage value (covering private and secondary homes in aggregate) that qualifies for interest deduction.
  • Discussing interest rate deduction on new home purchase goes hand-in-hand with the cap placed on Property Tax Deduction – now set at $10,000 (previously unlimited).
  • The Standard Deduction has been nearly doubled for all categories of tax filers in 2018 onwards.

Logically, anyone who intends buying in expensive locations or/and locations with property taxes above $10,000 should stop to think about it:

  • High property prices of course generally call for higher mortgage financing, And it often happens that premium locations are also the ones with the highest real estate taxes – a double whammy effect if you will.
  • In situations like this, it seems that the traditional enthusiasm around interest rate deductions may become somewhat jaded. It gives a whole new meaning to the popular realtor’s mantra, “location, location, location!”

The one escape hatch is to simply forget about itemizing interest payment and property tax claims; go to the expanded Standard Deduction now provided. But then again, the apparently increased relief offered by this new provision should be viewed alongside the knowledge that individual personal exemptions have been removed – which brings family size into the equation. If you have a lot of dependents (e.g. children or elderly parents) you may find yourself after all is said and done unchanged – or worse still, going backward.

Here’s another curveball that throws the cat amongst the pigeons: irrespective of when you bought or intend to buy your home/ homes (i.e. before or after the December 2017 law, it’s all the same) interest on second mortgages and on mortgages attached to unrented vacation residences is no longer deductible. Period. Given this, and all the other considerations are drawn into the conversation (as outlined above), it is impossible to provide a quick “catch-all” solution on interest rate deductibility. We can say this, however:

  • It is likely there’ll be a homebuyer movement away from expensive property purchases for the foreseeable future, resulting in a growing tendency to relocate to tax-friendlier regions.
  • The upper-middle class homebuyers will need to analyze these new tax provisions with a fine toothcomb, and even consider renting out vacation homes for part of the year to bring interest rate deduction back into the equation.
  • Those buying at home prices under the $750,000 cap limit with under-$10,000 property tax limits should have a far easier passage.

Conclusion: It’s at times like this that astute tax advice paves the way forward and dispels doubt. As you can see there are numerous considerations, especially for larger families and those fortunate enough to own more than one home. Also, those on the cusp of relocating should be looking at all the variables as well as state taxes before making the move. Our team is geared to answer your questions on every aspect of real estate related deductions. Contacting us sooner than later may be the wisest decision you can make this year.

Send us an e-mail or call us today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your business needs with an experienced Largo CPA. Click here for a Free Consultation.

Filed Under: Real Estate Accounting Services

Don’t Forget About the Medical Expense Deduction

February 13, 2019 by Admin

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 lowered the threshold for the deduction of medical and dental expense. The new law permits taxpayers to deduct unreimbursed medical expenses that are in excess of 7.5% of their adjusted gross income (AGI), down from 10% previously. This change, unlike others, was made retroactive to January 1, 2017. To be deductible, the expenses may not be reimbursed by insurance or elsewhere. For example, a family with AGI of $60,000 would have to spend more than $4,500 on unreimbursed medical expenses to qualify for any deduction. That floor rate may seem high, but with the increases in medical costs in recent years, expenses can add up quickly. Many families have no, or little, coverage for vision care or dental care. And an unexpected illness or accident can lead to thousands of dollars of unreimbursed expenses.

Out-of-Pocket Expenses

Only out-of-pocket costs can be deducted, that is, expenses not paid for by insurance or an employer. And expenses that are paid with money from tax-advantaged accounts (such as health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts) are not deductible either. Nor are any health insurance premiums automatically drawn from your paycheck on a pretax basis.

Nonetheless, the list of medical expenses that can qualify for the deduction is quite long. Doctors’ bills, tooth repairs, eyeglasses and contact lenses, hearing aids, laboratory fees, oxygen, psychiatric care, stop-smoking programs, surgery, and X-ray costs, for example, can all qualify. In addition, the expenses of dependent family members can also qualify for deduction.

Send us an e-mail or call Jackson and Associates, CPA, PA, today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your tax planning needs with an experienced Largo CPA.

Filed Under: Largo Tax Services

5 QuickBooks Reports You Need to Run in January

January 28, 2019 by Admin

The new year has begun. Does your accounting to-do list look like a clean slate, or are critical tasks from last year still nagging?

Getting all of your accounting tasks done in December is always a challenge. Besides the vacation time you and your employees probably took for the holidays, there are those year-end, Let’s-wrap-it-up-by-December-31 projects.

How did you do last month? Were you ready to move forward when you got back to the office in January? Or did you run out of time and have to leave some accounting chores undone?

Besides paying bills and chasing payments, submitting taxes and counting inventory in December, there’s another item that should have been on your to-do list: creating end-of-year reports. If you didn’t get this done, it’s not too late. It’s important to have this information as you begin the New Year. QuickBooks can provide it.

A Report Dashboard

You may be using the Reports menu to access the pre-built frameworks that QuickBooks offers. Have you ever explored the Report Center, though? You can get there by clicking Reports in the navigation toolbar or Reports | Report Center on the drop-down menu at the top of the screen.

QuickBooks’ Report Center introduces you to all of the software’s report templates and helps you access them quickly.

As you can see in the image above, the Report Center divides QuickBooks’ reports into categories and displays samples of each. Click on one of the tabs at the top if you want to:

  • Memorize a report using any customization you applied.
  • Designate a report as a Favorite
  • See a list of the most Recent reports you ran.
  • Explore reports beyond those included with QuickBooks, Contributed by Intuit or other parties.

Recommended Reports

Here are the reports we think you should run as soon as possible if you didn’t have a chance to in December:

Budget vs Actual

We hope that by now you’ve at least started to create a budget for this coming year. If not, the best way to begin is by looking at how close you came to your numbers last year. QuickBooks actually offers four budget-related reports, but Budget vs Actual is the most important; it tells you how your actual income and expenses compare to what was budgeted.

Budget Overview is just what it sounds like: a comprehensive accounting of your budget for a given period. Profit & Loss Budget Performance is similar to Budget vs Actual. It compares actual to budget amounts for the month, fiscal year-to-date, and annual. Budget vs Actual Graph provides a visual representation of your income and expenses, giving you a quick look at whether you were over or under budget during specific periods.

Income & Expense Graph

You’ve probably been watching your income and expenses all year in one way or another. But you need to look at the whole year in total to see where you stand. This graph shows you both how income compares to expenses and what the largest sources of each are. It doesn’t have the wealth of customization options that other reports due, but you can view it by date, account, customer, and class.

A/R Aging Detail

QuickBooks’ report templates offer generous customization options.

Which customers still owe you money from last year? How much? How far past the due date are they? This is a report you should be running frequently throughout the year. Right now, though, you want to clean up all of the open invoices from last year. A/R Aging Detail will show you who is current and who is 31-60, 61-90, and 91+ days old. You might consider sending Statements to those customers who are way past due.

A/P Aging Detail

Are you current on all of your bills? If so, this report will tell you so. If some bills slipped through the cracks in December, contact your vendors to let them know you’re on it.

Sales by Item Detail

January is a good time to take a good look at what sold and what didn’t before you start placing orders for this coming year. We hope you’re watching this closely throughout the year, but looking at monthly and annual totals will help you identify trends – as well as winners and losers.

QuickBooks offers some reports in the Company & Financial and Accountant & Taxes categories that you can create, but which really require expert analysis. These include Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, and Statement of Cash Flows. You need the insight they can offer on at least a quarterly basis, if not monthly. Connect with us, and we can set up a schedule for looking at these.

Social media posts

January is a good time to run reports you didn’t have time to in December. Talk to us about which are most important.

QuickBooks provides templates for some reports that you probably need help analyzing, like Balance Sheet. We can help with these.

Have you explored QuickBooks’ Report Center? It offers a variety of tools and guidance for managing reports.

Did you create a budget last year? Now’s the time to run QuickBooks’ Budget vs Actual report.

Send us an e-mail or call Jackson & Associates CPA, PA today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your QuickBooks accounting needs with an experienced Largo CPA.

Filed Under: QuickBooks

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