Returning Value Blog

With Labor Day in the rearview mirror, it’s time to take proactive steps that may help lower your small business’s taxes for this year and next. The strategy of deferring income and accelerating deductions to minimize taxes can be effective for most businesses, as is the approach of bunching deductible expenses into this year or next to maximize their tax value.

Let’s say you own real estate that has been held for more than one year and is sold for a taxable gain. Perhaps this gain comes from indirect ownership of real estate via a pass-through entity such as an LLC, partnership, or S corporation. You may expect to pay Uncle Sam the standard 15% or 20% federal income tax rate that usually applies to long-term capital gains from assets held for more than one year.

Get ready: The upcoming presidential and congressional elections may significantly alter the tax landscape for businesses in the United States. The reason has to do with a tax law that’s scheduled to expire in about 17 months and how politicians in Washington would like to handle it.

If you’re selling property used in your trade or business, you should understand the tax implications. There are many complex rules that can potentially apply. To simplify this discussion, let’s assume that the property you want to sell is land or depreciable property used in your business, and has been held by you for more than a year.

After experiencing a downturn in 2023, merger and acquisition activity in several sectors is rebounding in 2024. If you’re buying a business, you want the best results possible after taxes. You can potentially structure the purchase in two ways:

“An exemption from UNICAP? And no limitation on the amount of business interest expense I can deduct? Sign me up!”

The Department of the Treasury and the IRS on March 5 released final regulations (TD 9988) on the elective pay election for certain energy tax credits under IRC Section 6417, added by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which treats the credits as a payment against federal income tax liabilities.

Businesses basically have two accounting methods to figure their taxable income: cash and accrual. Many businesses have a choice of which method to use for tax purposes. The cash method often provides significant tax benefits for eligible businesses, though some may be better off using the accrual method. Thus, it may be prudent for your business to evaluate its method to ensure that it’s the most advantageous approach.

Operating your small business as a Qualified Small Business Corporation (QSBC) could be a tax-wise idea.

A taxpayer’s tax accounting methods determine when income is recognized and costs are deducted for income tax purposes. Strategically adopting or changing tax accounting methods can provide opportunities to drive tax savings and increase cash flow. However, the rules covering the ability to use or change certain accounting methods are often complex, and the procedures for changing methods depend on the mechanism for receiving IRS consent — that is, whether the change is automatic or non-automatic. Many method changes require an application to be filed with the IRS prior to the end of the year for which the change is requested.