Month: May 2010

Types of Depreciation Schedules

Most people that are looking for a depreciation schedule are doing so for one of two reasons: (1) They need to keep track of depreciation for IRS purposes or (2) they need to keep track of depreciation for bookkeeping purposes (yes sadly, these two are often different from each other).

If you are looking for depreciation schedules for tax reporting purposes you really have two options (read Pub 946 and use spreadsheets or use income tax software). You can head over to the IRS’s website and read Pub 946. Pub 946 contains all the information about how your assets should be depreciated for tax-reporting purposes. If you are already a tax accountant, then you probably already know a large portion of what is included in Pub 946. That being said, it is a good place to go when you have any questions. In my opinion the most useful section is the one that contains the depreciation tables. These tables classify assets into groups and then indicate the useful life of an asset for tax reporting purposes.

With the information from Pub 946 and some spreadsheet skills, you could whip up an excellent depreciation schedule for your business. However, nowadays most corporate income tax software comes ready to handle MACRS and tax depreciation. If the software is good, it will already have the pertinent information from Pub 946 that you need. This method seems a lot easier and I would recommend it to anyone who doesn’t really have a desire to read everything on the IRS website and then create your own spreadsheet. There are some die-hards out there who may prefer this method.

Another type of depreciation schedule is one that is used for your financial statements. There are a lot of rules on how these numbers have to be similar or different than the tax reported numbers but we will not delve into that discussion here. Just know that sometimes the numbers reported on the financial statements for depreciation are sometimes different than the numbers reported for tax purposes. The reason for this is you have two different governing bodies (the IRS governs tax rules while the FASB governs financial statement rules). This can get quite messy and often companies have two different sets of books (one for financial reporting purposes and one for tax purposes).

You can find preformatted depreciation schedules in Excel. Simply click on file, new, and then search for depreciation schedules. These are not that programming intense and you could probably make one yourself.

Another option is to buy some depreciation software. There are companies out there that specialize in depreciation and using some of their software may not be a bad idea for companies of all sizes. Probably the main reason I would use depreciation software over just a normal spreadsheet is for control purposes. Spreadsheets are known to proliferate quickly and information is often incorrect, duplicated, or outdated. With software, all of your information will be in one location making it easier to protect, update, and control.

Whether you are looking for a tax related schedule or a bookkeeping depreciation schedule I sincerely hope you are closer to your goal than you were previously. Find out more about business accounting.

Do Not Try Data Entry from Home for Extra Income

I do not recommend that anyone try to make extra money by doing data entry.  There are a few reasons for this and I will go into them in more detail.  For the most part, it is like a scam because you can never really do enough work in order to make anything like a decent wage.

Doing data entry from home is not going to produce as much income as, say, writing freelance articles would. Instead of entering data, consider writing articles instead and getting paid a few dollars per article.  This may not sound very exciting, until you consider the implications of writing about 5 to 10 articles every day.  When you do that with discipline then the numbers start to work in your favor and you can make a real part time income from it.  At worst, if you are writing 10 articles per day you will easily clear 500 bucks for the month, and some people can do this in right around 2 hours of work per day.  It all depends on how fast you are at composing new material.

Now another alternative to online data entry work is for you to publish new content on your own websites, and then promote your site to the point that you start getting natural traffic to it every day.  This sounds like a complicated process but it is actually fairly easy to accomplish if you are willing to work at it over time.  Eventually, you will get traffic flowing to it every day and then you can do various things to make money from that daily traffic.  At this point the income you make from your website will be largely passive and you will not have to work much, if at all, in order to maintain it.  A nice setup if you can put forth the effort to make it all work.

A Home Business Can Mean More In Taxes

A lot of people are trying to find ways to make moneyfrom home so that they can make ends meet. The poor economy has made it necessary to explore all your options. The Web is on every one’s thoughts as one of the simplest ways to accomplish that and it is undoubtedly the most effective way. An important question is though, have you ever ever thought-about what it might imply for your tax situation if you do become successful in generating a significant side income?

Most people who start out to make some additional money online only make small quantities by maybe going to one of many online surveys for money websites. They make $20 to $50 or much less and then call it a day because it is tedious and boring. But what if you are one of the rare people who doesn’t quit and goes on to make a lot more money online?

If you were to make make money in the thousands of dollars range, the first thing you should know is that you might owe Social Security tax. If you’re working for a corporation, they pay one half of the SS tax but when you are self employed, you will owe all 15.3% which is double what you’re paying now at your real job. This is the one big tax consequence that may people overlook when they are starting a home business.

There could also be other taxes, like state taxes, that you owe depending the place you live. Washington and Ohio have a B&O tax which will relieve you of another 1.5% of your gross proceeds. It doesn’t seem fair, but it is the law.

In the end, working from your own home is a great idea that many people would love to be able to accomplish. Nonetheless, few of them think about all of the little obstacles that will will happen when you are a sole proprietorship and work for yourself. It’s just like most things in life: there are good aspects and bad aspects to most everything you try.

Finding the Right Tax Attorney

Looking for a great tax relief attorney?  You can find more information at the ultimate resource for taxes, the Tax Attorneys Guide informational site.  Visit today to become more educated on tax law.

An attorney that specializes in tax law is called a tax relief attorney.  The job of this kind of attorney is usually to help customers navigate through complicated policies from various tax agencies like the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).  A tax attorney can provide a number of other services as well.  For example, they may mediate disputes in order to help individuals reduce tax debts or offer a payment plan that would work for them.

A tax relief attorney should be should be highly skilled and highly conscientious.  Because there are so many scandals in the tax world, it is important to pick an attorney who has high ethics and trustworthy business practices.  They should also be well trained and able to easily assist people who are having problems with taxes.  Usually a good amount of training is required for this so each tax attorney should be highly certified and recommended.

When looking for an attorney to help sort out your taxes, one of the first things you should check for is qualifications.  You should also be able to confirm that the attorney is in a good standing with the local community and law system.  Try to specifically ask about what training he/she went through and what additional training they have received in topics related to taxes.  Other things to inquire about are number of successful case, their case prognosis, and years of work experience. Accountants are a good way to get reviews on tax attorneys so you should ask the ones you know.  Family members and friends could also provide you with good recommendations with attorneys they have worked with in the past.