Review and Revise Your Estate Plan to Reflect Life Changes During the Past Year
Your estate plan shouldn’t be a static document. It needs to change as your life changes. Year end is the perfect time to check whether any life events have taken place in the past 12 months or so that affect your estate plan.
Offering COBRA to a Terminated Employee's Domestic Partner
Many employers offer coverage to employees’ domestic partners under their health care plans. If your organization does so, you need to determine what rights domestic partners have regarding COBRA insurance.
Time for NQDC Plan Deferral Elections
If you’re an executive or other key employee, your employer may offer you a nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plan. As the name suggests, NQDC plans pay employees in the future for services currently performed. The plans allow deferral of the income tax associated with the compensation.
Taking the Hybrid Approach to Cloud Computing
For several years now, cloud computing has been touted as the perfect way for companies large and small to meet their software and data storage needs. But, when it comes to choosing and deploying a solution, one size doesn’t fit all.
Buy Business Assets Before Year End to Reduce Your 2018 Tax Liability
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has enhanced two depreciation-related breaks that are popular year-end tax planning tools for businesses. To take advantage of these breaks, you must purchase qualifying assets and place them in service by the end of the tax year.
3 Critical HR Metrics for Employers
Many employers routinely watch key financial metrics, such as current ratio and gross profit. But these aren’t the only measures you should consider monitoring. Recent years have seen the emergence of vital human resource (HR) metrics.
LIFO Lessons Learned
You have choices when it comes to reporting inventory costs. One popular technique — the last-in, first-out (LIFO) method — assumes that merchandise is sold in the reverse order it was acquired or produced. That is, it allocates the most recent costs to the cost of sales.
Intellectual Property Requires Careful Estate Planning
If your estate includes forms of intellectual property (IP), such as patents and copyrights, it’s important to know how to address them in your estate plan. Although these intangible assets can have great value, in many ways they’re treated differently from other property types.
Donate Appreciated Stock for Twice the Tax Benefits
A tried-and-true year end tax strategy is to make charitable donations. As long as you itemize and your gift qualifies, you can claim a charitable deduction. But did you know that you can enjoy an additional tax benefit if you donate long-term appreciated stock instead of cash?
Research Credit Available to Some Businesses for the First Time
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) didn’t change the federal tax credit for “increasing research activities,” but several TCJA provisions have an indirect impact on the credit. As a result, the research credit may be available to some businesses for the first time.