Capital Lease or Operating Lease?

Businesses often choose to lease long-term assets rather than buy them for a variety of reasons

• the tax benefits are greater to the lessor (think seller) than the lessees (the person making payments)
• leases offer more flexibility in terms of adjusting to changes in technology and capacity needs.

Lease payments create the same kind of obligation that traditional loan payments create, and have to be viewed in a similar light. If a business is allowed to lease a significant portion of its assets and keep it off its financial statements, in particular, the Balance Sheet, the reader of the statements will be given a very misleading view of the company's financial strength, by not showing all the debt. Consequently, accounting rules have been devised to force businesses to reveal the extent of their lease obligations on their books.

There are two ways of accounting for leases.

In the Military? Special Tax Benefits May Apply

There are special tax benefits to members of the U.S. Armed Forces. If you or someone you know is in the military, prior to filing a tax return it makes sense to review your situation. Outlined here are some of the more common.

Combat Pay Income Exclusion.

18 IMPORTANT TIPS!

1. All of the following are under 140 characters for tweets:
2. May 15 is the deadline for calendar-year nonprofit organizations to file 2013 information returns.
3. A recent court ruling will limit IRA rollovers to one per year applied to all IRAs owned by the taxpayer, not one per year, per IRA.

I Need a Copy of My Tax Return...

Retaining copies of your federal tax return is important. Not only will you need the return in case of audit, but the tax return is often used to secure student aid, obtain loans, purchase a home or business, plus much more. What can you do if you cannot find a copy of your tax return?

WARNING!!   New limit on IRA rollovers

For years, the IRS interpreted the IRA rules to allow taxpayers to do one rollover per year in each IRA he or she owned. In doing a rollover, the taxpayer is not taxed on the funds taken from the IRA so long as the funds are redeposited into an IRA within 60 days of the withdrawal.