PBMares Accounting Blog

Soon after passage of the new tax reform law, the IRS announced that it is developing salary and wage tax withholding guidance to be issued sometime in January, 2018.  The IRS said that use of the new 2018 withholding guidelines will allow taxpayers to begin seeing the changes in their paychecks as early as February 2018. Until then, employers and payroll service providers should continue to use the existing 2017 withholding tables and systems.  The new withholding guidance will be designed to work with existing W-4 forms that workers have already filed. No further action by employees is necessary at this time.

Effective January 22, 2017, employers must use the revised form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification Form.

December and January are undoubtedly busy times for businesses with closing out their calendar years, gathering documentation for their accountants, tax preparers, and auditors, and filing wage and income information returns to taxing authorities for their employees and contractors.  Unfortunately, adding to this year’s stress and complexities are some accelerated due dates for certain information returns.  Below are those changes and some important reminders.

If you’re charitably inclined, making donations is probably one of your key year-end tax planning strategies. But if you typically give cash, you may want to consider another option that provides not just one but two tax benefits: Donating long-term appreciated stock.

More tax savings

Appreciated publicly traded stock you’ve held more than one year is long-term capital gains property. If you donate it to a qualified charity, you can enjoy two benefits: 1) You can claim a charitable deduction equal to the stock’s fair market value, and 2) you can avoid the capital gains tax you’d pay if you sold the stock. This will be especially beneficial to taxpayers facing the 3.8% net investment income tax (NIIT) or the top 20% long-term capital gains rate this year.

As many in the construction business know, you go where the work is. That often means traveling significant distances in and out of other cities, counties, and states. When that happens, the rules of contract, business, and taxes can change quite a bit.  A contractor who is unfamiliar with multistate tax differences can get into trouble quickly. To make matters worse, state governments can be aggressive in identifying out of state contractors who might be potential taxpayers.  Multistate tax issues can be expensive when your bid proposals or budgets fail to take into account these potential taxes.