For small businesses formed as an S Corporation and with plenty of profits, reasonable compensation is a term you may want to be familiar with. Many small businesses have organized as an S Corporation form of entity. In many cases, the S Corp election allows a business owner to save money on self-employment taxes, especially if they are operating as a sole proprietor. S Corp profits, or distributions, are not subject to payroll taxes. If you are a business owner taking a salary and contributing substantially to the operations of the business, you may think that you should just take the distributions and forget the salary. After all, think how much you would save in payroll taxes. But this has already been tried and shot down by the IRS in the courts. And this is where the term reasonable compensation comes in. The IRS requires that business owners that perform a substantial contribution to the business be paid a salary according to a number of factors. This is called reasonable compensation. You can’t pay yourself below market and take a large amount in distributions. The IRS has issued a fact sheet that describes the guidelines that can be used to [...]
Tax Musings of a Burbank CPA: IRS Phone Scams Still a Serious Threat
Aggressive and threatening phone calls by criminals impersonating IRS agents are still a serious threat to taxpayers. People claiming to be from the IRS or the Treasury Department say that your return has been recalculated and that the taxpayer now owes taxes and demand payment by wire transfer, gift cards or a prepaid debit card. The “agents” threaten the taxpayer with police arrest, deportation and jail time if the tax bill isn’t paid immediately. They can also leave “urgent” callback demands through telephone robocalls and phishing emails. A new claim is that the “payment” by those methods will be tied into the IRS EFTPS system and that the taxpayer will be able to validate the “payment” through that system after it is made. These phone scams have been going on for years and can still be successful, especially with taxpayers who are on extension and think they may owe money and the elderly. Since October of 2013 the Treasury General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reports over 10,000 victims have collectively paid more than $54 million because of phone scams. The IRS will NEVER: * Call to demand immediate payment using a specific payment method like gift cards, prepaid debit cards [...]
Tax Musings of a Burbank CPA: IRS Warning Taxpayers About “Phishing” Schemes to Steal Personal Information
The Internal Revenue Service has been warning taxpayers to watch out for phony websites and emails looking to steal personal information. The was a big spike in these “Phishing” schemes this last tax season, plus the IRS has seen email scams targeting tax and payroll professionals as well as human resources personnel and schools in addition to average taxpayers. In these scams, criminals pose as a person or organization the taxpayer trusts or recognizes, such as a bank, credit card company, tax software provider or government agency. There are websites that appear legit but have fake login pages so that victims will provide passwords, social security number s and other information that can be used for identity theft directly or can be sold to other criminals to use. Some of the scams are increasingly targeting tax professionals in an attempt to access their cleint list of personal and financial data. These phony emails and websites can also infect the victim’s computer with malware, giving the criminal access to the device so they can find sensitive information as well as track keyboard strokes, allowing access to login information. Just remember that Government Agencies don’t communicate by email but by certified mail. [...]