Owning your own business can be very rewarding, both personally and financially. Being the sole decision-maker for this important undertaking can also be overwhelming. Business owners have many choices to make, and these choices involve tax consequences that are not always foreseen. We can help you minimize your overall tax burden by identifying and maximizing business deductions, providing guidance on substantiation of expenses, and exploring tax planning alternatives that are uniquely available to the self-employed.

Although many provisions of the recently enacted health care reform package will not be felt for a few years, there are some benefits that begin in 2010, including the $250 tax-free "donut hole" rebate for seniors. This $250 rebate is intended to help seniors bridge the Medicare coverage gap. While many federal rebate-check programs are ending -- such as the Recovery Rebate Credit and Making Work Pay Credit -- the $250 donut hole rebate has just begun to be dispersed and an estimated 4 million seniors will receive the one-time $250 rebate, with more than 300,000 individuals having already received the check.

Are you required to inform the IRS of your foreign bank accounts, business interests, gifts or inheritances?  Here, we will review the basic filing requirements that you should be aware of.   We encourage all clients to review this and discuss all foreign transactions with us to determine the proper reporting requirements.  Although tax implications may not be involved, the penalties can be severe for failure to comply with the filing requirements.

DiSabatino, CPA helps individuals and business throughout the US.  For those clients that may have tax liabilities to the State of Pennsylvania, this may be of interest.

I have been advised that the Pennsylvania Voluntary Disclosure Program will be reinstituted effective August 1, 2010. The department will be updating its website with additional information in the near future.

Tax Practitioners know that Section 6001 of the IRC requires taxpayers to keep their tax records and that Rev. Rul. 71–20, 1971–1 C.B. 392, establishes that all machine-sensible data media used for recording, consolidating, and summarizing accounting transactions is considered such a tax record for this purpose. Because many taxpayers are now keeping their records using Quickbooks, the IRS has purchased 1,100 Quickbooks licenses for distribution to revenue agents. The intent is that agents may more quickly audit a taxpayer by reviewing records maintained in Quickbooks.