Quickbooks, Bookkeeping and Accounting Blog

A list of upcoming dates and actions that accountants, bookkeepers and small business owners should be aware of follows:

3/3/2008 - Fishermen & Farmers: your 2007 income tax return (Form 1040) is due, along with any taxes you owe.
3/5/2008 - If you are subject to the semiweekly deposit rule, then deposit payroll taxes for payments made between February […]

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Intuit just released a version of QuickBooks Online that will cost only $9.95/per month. Business owners purchasing QuickBooks Online will have two plans to choose from: QuickBooks Online Basic and QuickBooks Online Plus. Details of the two plans follows:
QuickBooks Online Basic

Basic features for simple businesses
$9.95/month (no discounts available for Accountants and Non-Profits)
1 user + accountant
Payroll: $19.95/month
Accept […]

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Congress is pressuring the IRS to ease the rules which currently require employees to keep detailed records of the business usage of their cell phones. In brief:
The current rules: workers are currently required to document the time and place of calls and the specific business purpose.
What’s changing: given that so many people have plans with unlimited […]

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QuickBooks classes enable you to classify all income and expense transactions. You can do so by department, location, type of business, partner or associate, or anything else that is useful and meaningful to you. You can then run reports in which you break your business down into the classes you have created. 
Example of Using QuickBooks Classes
Suppose […]

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Farmers and fishermen who file Form 1040 returns electronically with Form 4136 (Credit for Federal Tax Paid on Fuels) have to wait until March 3rd to e-file Form 4136, which has been revised to reflect changes related to the Leaking Underground Storage Tank tax (part of the Tax Technical Corrections Act of 2007, which was […]

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The IRS has warned taxpayers about several scams, the goal of which is generally to trick people into giving away personal and financial information, including social security numbers, bank account numbers and credit card numbers. The scammers then use these numbers to commit identity theft, incuding applying for new loans or credit cards, running up […]

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The 2008 Economic Stimulus Act, noted mostly for the stimulus payments it provides to individuals (see Bush Signs Economic Stimulus Package; Most People Will Receive Tax Rebates), provides two important incentives to businesses:

50 Percent Special Depreciation Allowance
Businesses will be able to depreciate 50% of the adjusted basis of certain qualified assets during the year the […]

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If you find that it often takes a long time to load and open your QuickBooks company file, then consider the following tips aimed at optimizing QuickBooks performance:

Close all windows before exiting QuickBooks
Before closing QuickBooks, make sure that you have closed all QuickBooks windows (from the QuickBooks Window menu, select “Close All”). If you don’t do […]

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The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, signed into law by president Bush on December 20, 2007, enables homeowners to refinance their mortgages without paying taxes on debt forgiven in the process.  Information about this Act follows:

What is the current law guiding mortgage forgiveness?
Under the current law, if your house declines in value and […]

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President Bush signed the economic stimulus package into law today, meaning about 130 million Americans will receive tax rebates. Information about the rebates follows:

You have to file a return to get a rebate check. Most Americans file returns anyway, but approximately 10-20 million Americans (lower income tax payers, social security recipients, recipients of verterans’ benefits) don’t […]

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If you use part of your home for business, then you might qualify for a home office deduction. For some questions designed to help you determine if you qualify, see my previous blog titled Home Office Deductions: Do You Qualify. If you do qualify, then you may deduct portions of the following home expenses:

real estate […]

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If you use a portion of your home for business, then you might qualify for a home office deduction. The following questions are designed to help you figure out if you qualify:

Do you use a specific area of your home exclusively or regularly for business?
If you have not designated a specific area of your home as […]

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