It’s not too late to cut your 2008 taxes!

You can accrue salary and bonuses for rank-and-file employees (not owners of 50% or more) and you do not have to pay them until March 16 this year. Other March 16th corporate deadlines:

 12/31/08 corporate returns are due, unless you are filing an extension. We automatically file extensions for all of our clients.

2008 Contributions to pension and profit sharing plans. However filing an extension extends this to 9/15/09. (Now you know why we automatically extend everyone) 

Pay out any C Corp dividends to escape the accumulated earnings tax

File S Company status for 2009 – however there are many exceptions to this rule and it is very easy to file a late request on a new company.

As your favorite Phoenix certifed public accountant  I hope to see you soon.

Gotta love Congress!

Timothy Geitner cheated on his taxes AND now he’s the Treasury Secretary.  When he was being grossly overpaid in a previous consulting job, he was told he would have to pay self employment tax on his earnings.  He said OK, and negotiated an extra allowance to cover the tax.  However he never paid the self employment tax!!! Not until he was audited for the Treasury Secretary job.  Not quite sure how to take that.  I admire his stance, but is that what we need as a leader????  Maybe it is?  This Phoenix CPA is a bit bewildered.

Obama’s stimulus plan

So here go the politicians, leveraging our futures – AGAIN!  Now that we have started preparing 2008 tax returns, we have to deal with the last stimulus plan.  Remember how Bush tried to buy everyone by sending them money last summer?  Well we now have to report how much everyone got.  And you know our members have no idea how much they got.

Seems kind of silly to be giving all these loser companies a bunch of money.  If they want to create jobs, why not give us small business guys a shoot?  we create most of the jobs anyways.  If I had some incentives, I could easily hire 1 or 2 people.  Instead they pump BILLIONS into autos (hey – I’m from Detroit, I get it), with over paid labor, fat & slow management, and bad products.  The business model can not make it.  Maybe they should reduce the self employment tax, that way all these unemployed people will be able to start their own businesses.

Another idea would be to remove the passive income rules.  Let the people with money invest in real estate.  By removing the passive losses, they will be able to deduct the losses.  They’d pay less in taxes and would use that money to buy more real estate.  Hmmmm.

Anyways that’s just this humble Phoenix CPA’s opinion.

So what is Obama going to do with Taxes?

Man, don’t you hate typo’s?  I was just reviewing my last post, and saw I spelled the presidents name wrong!  Oppps!

So a couple of other tax things that have been getting a ton of press lately.  What is going to happen to the estate tax?  It has been scheduled to go away for 2010 and then come back to the original (teeny tiny exemption) amount in 2011.  Best guess is they will keep the 2009 levels.  3.5 million exemption per person.

There has also been talk of making the AMT (alternative minimum tax) go away.  Are you kidding?  Have you seen the tab the drunken politicians have left us?  There is no way the AMT will be repealed.

We have been hearing from ALOT of people about the debt forgivenss issues.  We have prepared a letter that explains everything.  So if you need a copy, just harass your favorite Phoenix income tax firm.  Call the office at 602-943-4494 for a free copy.