To know if you are money ahead deducting your business vehicle using the IRS mileage rate or the actual-expense method, you need to use our magic calculator. Tax software used by tax professionals and consumers compares the first-year deductions only, and because of the wide variation in first-year deductions caused by the luxury vehicle limits, bonus depreciation, and Section 179 expensing, the first-year-only comparison is going to produce inaccurate results.

Business owners and employees who do not pay their payroll taxes can find themselves personally liable for the trust fund portion of those taxes. This is true even if the business operates as a separate legal entity such as a corporation. If you are a business owner or employee in trouble with the IRS over unpaid payroll taxes, you need to consider strategies you can use to stop the IRS from assessing the trust fund penalties against you.

You need to know, and avoid, tax-problem surprises when you gift business property to your parents, children, or others. With the wrong method, you can toss tax-deduction benefits into the trash. You can easily suffer recapture. Don’t let your gift of business property surprise you and take money out of your bank account.

If you own tax code-defined nonresidential property (otherwise known as commercial property), you have to like The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act enacted last December. The PATH Act put three huge nonresidential property-qualifying leasehold improvement tax breaks in place through 2019.

When it comes time to sell your business, it’s likely that you need to consider the intangible asset of goodwill. You have several things to consider, depending on the business entity you used to operate your business. For example, if you operated as a C corporation, how do you avoid double taxation on the goodwill? This article shows you how. Regardless of entity, how do you avoid the net investment income tax (NIIT)? This article shows you how.

You may have heard that options are the perfect way to increase profits on real estate investments and rentals. Well, perfect is probably an overstatement, but good profits are available when you know what you are doing. You also need to know the tax rules to avoid clauses, charges, and events that can turn options into sales and trigger taxes when you least expect them.