To know if the S corporation is the best choice of entity for your business, first you need to consider three advantages and nine disadvantages. Next, you need to take the S corporation advantages and disadvantages that apply to you and get a bottom-line number comparison with your second choice for an operating entity. In this way, you can make a logical choice, knowing that your best choice will stay with you for a number of years and let you pocket more after-tax cash while you sleep better at night.

Are you looking for more tax deductions this year? It’s not too late. Learn 12 last-minute tax-planning ideas that you can implement to create or push more deductions into this year so you can pay less in taxes this year.

Is your business entity the best tax-deduction business entity for you? Do you need liability protection? How do the different entities produce different tax deductions? If you are looking for answers to these questions, this article is for you. Also, the article contains one sure way to select the best business entity for you.

Your business ownership creates an opportunity for a tax plan that can give you tax deductions for hiring your children and can give your children tax-free income. But your tax plan does not stop there. Your children might start Roth IRAs where they can invest their tax-free income in a college fund. Done right, as described in this article, the government pays you for your help with this plan.

The Roth IRA is tax advantaged. The foreign sales corporation also is tax advantaged. Imagine putting the tax-advantaged foreign sales corporation inside a tax-advantaged Roth IRA. That’s what happens in this article.

This is part 4 in our series of articles on retirement plans for the one-owner or husband-and-wife-owned business. Here we explain the solo 401(k), which permits the largest deductions of the defined contribution plans. The solo 401(k) has unique advantages when your income fits this profile.

The self-directed IRA is not a common sight, but it is even more uncommon, almost rare in fact, for the self-directed IRA to have an interest in a tax-advantaged domestic international sales corporation. This article gives insight into what’s possible with a self-directed IRA.

The SIMPLE-IRA may be the best retirement plan for the modest-income business owner. And, as you would expect from its name, the SIMPLE-IRA is easy to understand and implement. However, there is one very unusual exception. The SIMPLE-IRA has a current-year October 1 deadline for having the plan in place. That’s 12.5 months earlier than the deadline for a SEP.

This is the second article in our series on the best small-business retirement plans. Here we identify the four major advantages and three disadvantages to the SEP.

This is the first in a series of articles on retirement plans for small-business owners. In this first article, you learn the basics. Why should you have a retirement plan? When should you start contributing to your plan? What types of plans are available to you? Regardless of the type of business entity—proprietorship, LLC, S corporation, or C corporation—this article gives you the basics you need for a quality retirement plan.

You might think that you are entitled to your Social Security benefits. In fact, that would be logical. Unfortunately, however, it’s not true. You need to plan your benefit collections, or you could lose a huge chunk to taxes.

This issue contains 21 last-minute tax tips that you can use for 2010. We broke the tips into two articles: one for vehicles and one not related to vehicles. This article contains 12 last-minute tax tips that are not related to vehicles.

If you draw Social Security retirement benefits before full retirement age, you face the loss of $1 in benefits for each $2 of earnings over $14,160. Further, when the provisional income on your tax return exceeds $25,000 (single) or $32,000 (married), you must include at least 50 and not more than 85 percent of your Social Security benefits in taxable income. Thus, your receipt of Social Security benefits triggers the need for planning.

A new 2006 law allows a one-time transfer of money from your IRA to an HSA. If you do it right, you can avoid income taxes or penalties. We’ll show you how.

Don’t waste time and money in a bad retirement plan. Your IRA can accumulate great wealth for your retirement when done properly. A self-directed retirement might be the answer for you.

Anti-alienation provisions prevent ordinary creditors from levying pension payments. The IRS does not suffer these provisions.

This proprietor paid his employee-wife $12,000 in wages. Now, she wants to contribute the entire $12,000 as an elective deferral to her 401(k) account but she no longer has $12,000 because of payroll taxes. With some mechanical adjustments, the employee-wife may contribute the full $12,000.

The combination of a Section 105 medical plan and a $15,500 salary to the spouse generated a $32,875 tax deduction for the business, no taxable income for the spouse, and a cash contribution to the spouse’s 401(k) retirement account of $19,375.

If you must start taking minimum IRA distributions, you decide to have the IRA withhold the taxes or not. If you are not currently making any estimated tax payments, it might be a good idea to have them take care of that paperwork for you, but if you are currently paying estimated taxes, pay more with each estimate.

If you want to donate money from your IRA to charity, there are two ways to do it: you can have the IRA send the money directly to the charity, or you can do it an alternate way. We recommend sending the money directly to save money on taxes. There are important details, however, so read closely.

Although required to withdraw money beginning at age 70½, this age 74 taxpayer should continue to invest in his 401(k) to take advantage of tax-free compounding for an additional 12 plus years.

The solo 401(k) is one great retirement vehicle for the independent contractor.

Incorporated and unincorporated businesses can use the solo 401(k) to benefit the owner (including a husband and wife). In most cases, the solo 401(k) allows the one-owner or husband-and-wife owners to put away more than they could in other plans (up to $49,000 this year, depending on age and earnings—adjusted for inflation in future years).

This new law requires that you look at your retirement plans through new eyes. Caution is one watchword here. You have much to consider, including how to obtain a strong rate of return on your retirement assets and factors outside your control like the pension bailout of the airline industry. With the new rules, the 401(k) looks better and better, especially if you have employees.

At death, IRAs are not treated like homes, which pass to the heirs at fair market value with no income tax issues. Instead, the IRA faces both the estate tax and the income tax. In this court case, the combined estate and income taxes devoured $1.6 million and the heirs had $1.1 million left to spend.

When you take early retirement and your income is greater than the thresholds, your Social Security benefits are subject to (1) recapture by the Social Security Administration and (2) taxation by the IRS. Tax planning to avoid both benefit recapture and taxation of benefits involves the possible use of an S or C corporation.

In 1935, the self-employment tax topped out at $60. In 2006, the first part of the self-employment tax tops out at $14,413, but the 2.9 percent Medicare part continues after that without limits. Good tax planning for the self-employment tax is like an annuity. It gives you monetary returns—year after year—every year you are in business. So, plan now and consider everything from choice of entity to hiring your children.

You often have many alternatives when it comes to pension coverage for you and your employees. This is an area where you should speak with several individuals, including your tax advisor and life insurance agent, before making a decision.