Most small businesses wait until the last day to ready their books for the tax season. Getting an early start, whether you do it yourself or use tax companies, will reduce your tax burden and minimize the struggles you go through at the end of the year. It could even increase your tax deductions. Here are three tips on preparing your business for the tax season.

Update Employee and Independent Contractor Details

Do not wait for the end of the year to collect your employee and contractor details. If your business works with independent contractors and not employees, you will be required to submit 1099 form – this is a form that reports any payments over $600 made to contractors. Before submitting the details, call contractors to ensure you have up-to-date information.

If you do not have a W-9 form on file, submit one to the contractors and ask for contact details and business tax identification number. By January 31, every employee should receive a W-2 form to ensure you have the correct contact details.

Maximize Deductions

As the end of year approaches, you need to take advantage of tax deductions to pay as little tax as possible. To start with, buy new office equipment or furniture towards the tax season to qualify for tax deductions. You can also contribute in-cash or in-kind to a charitable organization. Instead of disposing of your old equipment and furniture, give them to a qualifying charitable organization, and you could reduce your tax burden by a large percentage.

Another way to reduce your tax burden is to give end-year bonuses to your employees before December. Bonuses given before the start of the tax period qualify your business for tax deductions. Still on employees, and end year party (that is limited to all employees and not you and your family) may qualify for up to 100 percent tax deductions as established by IRS.

Gather All Documents in Time

Receipts, invoices, and any other documents needed to file your tax returns must be ready by the start of the tax period. Organize all your tax documents in an easy-to-access folder. Keep in mind that some of the materials need to be prepared way ahead of time. 

Accounting and personal tax services are not one of the “cool” neighborhood offices. Everyone knows and loves the diners, the movies, the stores and malls but not everyone knows the accountant’s office in the neighborhood.

Be that as it may, the most important folks in every neighborhood will most like know exactly where the best neighborhood accounting service is. The reason for this is very simple – they offer a really important service to folks who want to take their finances seriously.

To help us understand this topic better, we will try to look at what an accounting service offers.

What is an Accounting Service?

An accounting service is a company of accounting professionals that offers a wide range of services that covers all accounting processes like bookkeeping, payroll processing and management and other such processes aimed at ensuring a client’s financial transactions and records are kept in a highly organized manner.

You can read more about it here.

What is a Personal Tax Service?

So what about personal tax services? As an individual’s income begins to increase, it is important to understand how best to navigate issues that have to do with tax. Failure to do this can result in a number of things including over paying on your taxes or under paying and incurring the wrath of your government should they eventually find out.

A personal tax service will guide you through the entire process, helping you work with relevant tax laws to ensure you never run afoul of these laws while also making certain you never pay more tax than you should.

Who Needs These Services?

From all we have looked at above, you should already have an idea of the class of folks that will require the services of personal tax and accounting services. These can be classified into two groups – businesses and certain individuals.

Businesses

One accounting school in its bid to coin a witty slogan said “Just as French is considered the language of love, accounting is considered the language of business.” Whether anyone likes it or not, no business can do without proper accounting.

A business needs proper accounting to know if it is making profit or recording loses. It needs accounting to get the data it needs to understand what areas of the business needs improvement. This is the same for every business, whether big or small. The only difference is that the bigger the business gets, the more complex and demanding its accounting needs get.

While larger companies can afford to have in-house accounting departments, smaller businesses will find the services of an accounting firm both cheaper and more effective. They can keep their books in the best possible shape without going through the stress of hiring their own accountant and paying the attendant cost.

With proper accounting services, bookkeeping, payroll management, tax preparation etc. will be fully taken care of.

Individuals

First off, not all individuals may require either an accounting or personal tax service. However, as your income increases or becomes highly diversified, you may find that handling your taxes can become very confusing. Having a personal tax advisor to help you through the process can either save you cost by ensuring that you do not pay more than you should, make sure you do not default on any tax laws or both.

The higher your net worth, the more important it will be for you to get not just a personal tax service, but also an accountant or an accounting service. This is why you will never find a rich person who does not have a lawyer and an accountant.

Using the Right Accounting Service

When choosing an accounting service, it is important that you choose the right one or else you may not enjoy the full benefits you are supposed to get from such a service. To ensure you choose the right service, we will provide a few tips that will help you through the selection process.

How to Choose the Right Company

To ensure the company you finally settle for is the right one or has the relevant experience or knowledge to deliver the quality of service you desire, note the following tips.

Ask for Referrals

One of the best ways find the best service is to ask for referrals from friends or family members. You can even ask from anyone or business you think has their accounting well sorted out. People will usually only refer you to people who did a good job for them. In the same vein, people will also warn you off anyone or company that did not deliver quality service to them. This can save you a lot of stress.

Check for Reviews

Just in case you didn’t get any referrals or you got a lot and therefore need to do some sifting, simply go online and look for reviews regarding the company in question. Since we are focusing on the Abbotsford area, a near me search will show you personal tax and accounting services within the area.

When you check these, you should also see reviews from their previous clients. Their reviews should be able to give you an idea of how well a service they provide.

Keep it Local

This should be pretty obvious to all. There’s no point in you looking for companies outside of the Abbotsford area. There are a number of them like https://numbersunlimited.ca. Choose from these for increased convenience.

Compare Quotes and Services

After you are done shortlisting some companies, you can then finalize by comparing their cost and services offered to make a final decision.

April 15th is now behind us! Your taxes are complete, and you can finally relax. You can sit back and decide what you want to do with that tax refund! In 2019 the average tax return was $1,947. Will you spend it all on a vacation, put it into your savings account, or invest it? Let’s discuss some of the best uses for the money you receive from your tax refund.

The first great use of your tax return would be to pay off high interest debt that you may have. This could include student loans, credit card debt, or other personal loans. According to simple dollar, if you have a $3,050 credit card balance at 18% APR and you have the opportunity to pay it off in one fell swoop. If you used your tax refund to repay this debt, you would save yourself almost four years of monthly minimum payments, and a whopping $1,210 in interest payments alone. The savings can be huge when you knock out some of your high interest debt, so that is why many people will choose this option with their tax return!

Another fantastic use of your tax return is to create an emergency fund. Having a rainy day fund is essential for when life hits you with the unexpected. It is a very good idea to  set aside some money in case of a health incident, car problems, or loss of job. It is recommended that you have at least three months worth of income in your emergency fund. Using your tax refund is a perfect way to get this fund started. There are also banks that offer round up savings, and allow you to easily contribute to your existing fund.

Lastly, and probably everyone’s favorite, is to treat yourself! You have worked hard all year, and you deserve a pat on the back. That could be in the form of a new TV, a fancy night out, or a nice vacation. If you have already set aside a sufficient emergency fund, and do not have any existing debt, then you can certainly spend some money on fun! Even if you plan to spend your tax return on yourself, it is wise to do it in moderation. Perhaps you could allocate 75 percent of your tax return towards a vacation, and then invest the other 25 percent into your retirement fund. Moderation is key!

A lot of companies are already benefiting from research and development credit program but there are other companies which are lacking behind this race. They do want to compete but they are way behind due to several reasons. There are a lot of factors which a company must keep in mind before submitting their application to this program. This is a Very competitive program and that is why your application must be perfect in all aspects. If you are wondering that what is the criteria on which every companies profile is judged then this article has covered. In this article, there are four tips which your application must cover in order to get a successful result of the scheme. You should not miss such a reliable opportunity which could reduce your income tax and save you a lot of dollars. You must be aware that there are certain activities which qualify, their expenditures and other documentation which are needed to be taken care of prior to the application process. By following these Four Points you will get a clear idea about the insight of this program. You will not be able to claim research and development tax incentive if these four fundamental tips are not taken into the account which are mentioned below:

Importance of Federal Income Tax by R& D Consultant

Many companies are not paying their Federal income tax which is not a good point the eyes of this program according to R & D Consultant. If you are a small startup then you should take care of 2 requirements in order to be eligible for this claim. Your company must not own gross receipts of more than 5 years with less than $5 million each year.

Research and development tax incentive prefers development

If your small startup or your business does not involve anything innovative or related to research and development then there is a high probability that your company will not be qualify.  Many companies have this idea fed into their head that if a company is not technology based or high in tech-advancements then they are not eligible. But this is a completely wrong perception. There is no rule that your startup must have large research and development laboratories or complete fields dedicated to this process. Though it should be somewhat related to research and development experiments. But there is no obligation of owning a large experimentation area. The prime goal of research and development tax incentiveis that your company must do something better for the consumers and should innovate or experiment with new ideas.

Importance of scientists according to R& D Consultant

This credit was primarily started in order to encourage more experiments and more research-based approach. If Your Company has hired many engineers and scientists then you have the highest probability to get selected. Your company must head in the direction of improvement like it must perform activities in such regard.

Research and development tax incentive prefers innovation

Many companies fail to be eligible for this process because according to R & D Consultantthey are not actually working on something new. As a business owner, you have to give time to improve the product which your customers consume, whether in terms of technique, software or design.

On 28^th of February 2015 Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley announced the budget of India for the Financial Year 2015-16. The Income Tax slabs/rates for the the Financial Year 2015-16 and Assessment Year 2016-17 is discussed below:
  
  

(I) For Individuals aged below 60 years (including Woman Assessees or any NRI/ HUF/ AOP/ BOI/ AJP):
 

 

(II) For Senior Citizen (Individuals aged 60 years and above but below 80 years):

(III) For Super Senior Citizen (For Individuals aged 80 years and above):

Surcharge : 10% of the Income Tax, where taxable income is more than Rs. 1 crore.

Education Cess : 3% of the total of Income Tax and Surcharge.

Tax Credit U/S 87A: Finance Bill 2015 says nothing on the Section 87A. Hence this provision continues for AY 2016-17 as well and provides a rebate of Rs 2,000 for individual whose taxable income doesn’t exceed Rs. 500,000.

(IV) For Co-operative Society

Surcharge : Where taxable income is more than Rs. 1 crore, Surcharge will be 10% of the Income Tax. (Marginal Relief in Surcharge, if applicable)

Education Cess : 3% of the Income Tax and Surcharge.

(V) For Firm

(VI) For Local Authority

(VII) For Domestic Company

(VIII) For Company other than a Domestic Company or Foreign Company

Helpful Resources:

http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/default.aspx

https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/

They say there is nothing certain in life except death and taxes, so why not start your own tax preparation business. It is easy to start this type of business, and it is as close to as stable of a business as you will ever see. Regardless of the condition of the economy, there will always be a demand for people to prepare their taxes.

Although there is a lot to know about preparing taxes, the truth is that much of the work that is done today is done with software. It has become so simple that you do not need a degree in accounting to prepare someone’s tax returns. All you need to do is learn how to use tax preparation software.

There are companies that will license this type of software to you and train you to use it. Once you learn how to use the software, you only need to make sure your clients have the necessary information to enter the correct data. This type of software also has verification checks built into it to make sure the right data is being entered.

One of the best parts of starting your own tax preparation business is that you can operate the business right out of your own home. You can also do it part time throughout the year while you work another job. This takes much of the risk out of starting your own business.

There are several companies that will provide everything you need to get your tax business started. One example of this type of company is No Limit Tax Refunds. Their website has a click here button for more information.

Let’s face it, no one likes taxes. Taxes are a necessary evil in life and every business or person needs to follow through on the best tax prepartion Calgary every year. Otherwise, the business or person could face an audit or a general headache when the taxes are due.

The main problem most organizations and people have with taxes, however, is not that they exist, it’s that the tax laws always change. From one tax year to another, a family or small business could expect their tax rates to change on a federal level, in Alberta or with their municipal taxes in Calgary. Although most people expect they can handle their taxes, it is always a good choice to consult with an accountant or accounting firm.

Accountants or accounting firms may seem like a financial investment, but the investment is worth the time and money. Accounting in Calgary can be quite complex and an accountant or firm is here to help their clients. Every accountant, whether they are independent or part of a firm, will know the complexity of the Calgary, Alberta and Canadian tax code. These professionals also keep up-to-date on how the tax code changes. They also know what benefits exist or are created in the tax code for families or businesses. Finally, these professionals can offer consulting advice on how to best prepare or handle tax issues with the government.

Outsourcing tax work to an accountant will help to alleviate any stress that comes from filing taxes. Instead of frantically keeping up with new tax laws and codes, have an accountant work on the taxes.