Posts

Showing posts from December, 2011

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE NEW AND EXTENDED ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROVISIONS ARE?

These credits are a great way to make improvements on residential homes while reducing your income tax. These credits include, the Nonbusiness energy property credit and the Residential Energy Efficient Property Credit. The actual credit is set to expire however there is talk of extending it. The IRS suggest that taxpayers should act fast and take advantage of this credit.  Insulation materials, exterior windows and doors, central air conditioners, natural gas, non solar heaters are just a few energy efficient items that will allow you to use 10% credit of cost. However, new construction and rentals do not qualify. This dollar for dollar tax credit is a long term benefit of reduced energy consumption.  A credit that will expire December 31, 2016 is a part of the Residential Energy Efficient credit. This has to do with Solar energy systems. Which includes Solar heaters, solar water heaters, solar heat pumps, etc. This credit is used for new and existing homes, however it will not qua

DO YOU KNOW WHAT TAX PROVISIONS ARE EXPIRING?

As 2011 is almost at an end there are several income tax provisions that are schedule to expire with the close of the year. Some of the more significant ones affect the tax treatment of fixed assets. Here are just a few: - Depreciation deduction for qualifying property placed in service after September 8, 2010 and through 2011 which was increased to 100% will revert to 50% bonus depreciation deduction. - Fifteen year straight-line cost recovery for qualified leasehold improvements, qualified restaurants buildings and improvements, and qualified improvements will expire also. - Special expensing rules certain film and television productions allowing a deduction for qualified costs, rather then capitalizing and amortizing the costs under the income forecast method will also expire. There will also be changes impacting Businesses which may include: - The tax credit for research  and experimentation expenses only applies to amount paid before January 1, 2012. - The credit for constr

SELF-EMPLOYMENT DEDUCTIONS

 This self-employment deduction can't be taken by everyone, the taxpayers who do qualify are: - A self-employed individual with a net profit for the tax year (code Secs. 162(I)(1), 40(C)  - A partner with the net earning from self-employment (Code Secs. 162(I)(1), 401(C)).  - An S corporation shareholder who owns more then 2 percent of the outstanding stock of the   S corporation and has wages from the S corporation (Code Secs. 162(I)(5) , 1372 (a)).  This deduction was developed to place self-employed individuals on a level playing field with the employees, who are allowed to exclude the cost of employer-provided health care cost from gross income on your 1040 tax return. How do you know if you qualify? To qualify for the deduction, a shareholder must have wages reported to him by the corporation on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. However, sometimes the deduction will not be available during which such a taxpayer was eligible participate in any employer-subsidized health p

WHAT TO DO IF YOU DON'T RECEIVE YOUR REFUND

Do you know what to do if you don't receive your IRS refund?.... The IRS has 153.3 million dollars in undelivered tax refund checks. Which averages out to 1,547 for the taxpayers that didn't receive their refund. All of these errors occurred because of a mailing address error.  If you are a taxpayer who believes their refund check may have been returned to the IRS, then you should use the "Where's My Refund" tool located on the IRS website. The tool will give you the status of your refund and, in some cases, instructions on how to resolve delivery problems. Although only a small percentage of checks mailed out come back undelivered, taxpayers can simply avoid that issue by switching to direct deposit when they file paper or electronic returns. However, the IRS suggest that filing your return electronically will reduce the amount of lost paper returns, reduces errors on tax returns and it will speed up refunds.  Please go to our website at  www.sykesaccounting.