Here, in alphabetical order, are
some websites you MAY find useful in your practice. You may already be aware of several of these
sites and are currently using them.
Of course the most useful sites of
all will be www.irs.gov and state tax department sites (see below for a source of links to state tax department sites).
The latest in accounting and tax
regulations, legislation, technology and insight.
Sign up for the ACCOUNTANTS WORLD DAILY
HEADLINE NEWS email newsletter, which provides links to articles and blog posts
on timely tax, accounting and audit, technology, financial planning, and small
business topics. Click on “Sign Up for the Daily Headline Newsletter”. This portal has lots of other resources and
information for accountants.
This address will take you to the
State Department per diem rates for Lodging and Meals and Incidental Expenses
for international travel. Use these
amounts if you travel overseas for business.
With the “divestiture” of ATT in
1984, and all the splits, both positive and reverse, spin-offs and mergers that
have followed, determining the cost basis of ATT stock sold, as well as the
basis of the various spin-off companies’ shares, is a real project. Go here for Tax Basis Worksheets for each
individual event in the history of ATT.
You can use this site to find the
price of any listed stock or mutual fund on any exchange for any given
date. If you inherit an investment, your
cost basis is the fair market value of the investment on the date of death of
the person from whom it was inherited.
This information is generally reported on the federal estate or state
inheritance tax return. However, when
you sell the stock you inherited you do not always have ready access to this
information. You can calculate your basis
by going to this site and, under “Historical Quotes”, enter the ticker symbol
of the stock and the date of death, or the business day closest to the date of
death, to get a price quote. If you sell
stock that you received as a gift, your basis is either what the donor paid for
the stock or the fair market value at the time the gift was made. You can also use this site to determine a
cost basis for gifted property.
You must begin to take annual
required minimum distributions from a traditional IRA or employer pension
account by April 1st of the year following the year in which you turn age
70½. This address takes you to a
calculator that will determine the amount of your required minimum distribution
for the year.
Read the CCH
TAX AND ACCOUNTING BLOG of the most important federal and state tax news
stories.
Go here to
sign up for free email newsletters from CCH, including federal and state TAX
NEWS HEADLINES.
CCH
periodically publishes free TAX BRIEFINGS on federal tax legislation and
developments. Scroll down to listings
under the books for sale.
Over 100 calculators covering such
areas as home purchase, mortgages and home equity loans, savings and
retirement, automobile purchase and financing, credit cards, stocks, bonds and
mutual funds, IRAs and insurance.
One of the biggest time wasters
during the tax filing season is trying to determine the cost basis of stock sold
by a client – especially stock that has split often since its original
purchase, or was acquired via spin-off or merger. This site will help you determine the tax
basis of securities sold, and show how to account for those stock spinoffs,
mergers, splits, split-offs, rights, and class action claim checks. I have so
far used it to look up two stocks that had been acquired via merger, and found
it very helpful in these two situations. Cost basis information, calculators,
worksheets can also often be found in the Shareholder Services sections of
company websites.
You can use the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System to pay
any type of federal individual or business tax online. For example, once you determine your federal
estimated tax payments for the year you can go to this site and, after
registering, instruct eftps to automatically withdraw each quarterly payment
from your bank account on the individual due dates (April 15, June 15, Sept 15
and Jan 15) and never have to worry about forgetting to make a payment or
making a payment late.
If you travel for business, instead
of deducting your actual expenses for meals and incidental expenses you can
elect to deduct the federal per diem amount for the location of the
travel. Go here to find the federal per
diem rates for Lodging and Meals and Incidental Expenses for domestic business
travel.
The rules regarding claiming a
deduction for donating a car to charity have drastically changed, but there are
still situations where you will deduct the fair market value of the
automobile. Click on “My Car's Value" to find your “Blue Book Value”.
This is the website of HomeWork
Solutions, nationally recognized experts in the field of household employment
taxes providing assistance to domestic employers and their tax preparers. I have no experience in dealing with this
firm, and this entry is not an endorsement of their services. However, this site is an excellent source of
information and resources on household employment and the “Nanny Tax”. It provides detailed answers to Frequently
Asked Questions about the Nanny Taxes, downloadable tax forms, employment forms
and free tip sheets and tools, and has a Nanny Tax Blog.
The Limited Liability Company (LLC)
is one of the most flexible entities for a business. You can protect personal
assets from business losses and judgments just like a traditional
C-corporation, with the pass-through taxation of a partnership. This site has, or links to, just about
everything you always wanted to know about forming, operating and ending a
Limited Liability Company, but didn’t know who to ask.
An online collection of payroll
tools, this site features a Paycheck Calculator to determine the federal and
state withholding and net pay under various scenarios. You can use this calculator to see how
changing your withholding status and/or number of exemptions will affect your
take home pay. It also has other helpful
calculators and resources..
Here are some websites that provide
guidelines for determining the value of non-cash (clothes, household items,
appliances and furniture, etc.) contributions to charity.
This site offers complete and up-to-date information on
Section 529 college tuition savings plans for all states, with links to the
websites of the individual state plans.
Go here for direct access to the state
tax agencies and state tax forms for the 50 states, the District of Columbia,
and US Territories.
These are weblogs, or “blogs” that deal with federal, and
sometimes state, tax issues. The
Wandering Tax Pro blog, which I write, provides up-to-the-minute advice,
information, resources and commentary on federal and New Jersey state income
taxes and the NJ property tax rebate and refund programs, and updates on
federal and state tax legislation, IRS and NJ Division of Taxation rulings and
regulations, and federal and state tax court decisions.
If you have any sites you have found helpful in your
practice that you would like to add to this list, please email me at rdftaxpro@yahoo.com
with “Tax Pro Online Resources” in the Subject Line.
TAFN
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