Self-Employment Tax and Rental Exceptions
The tax treatment, particularly the application of self-employment taxes, of rental income from real estate investment properties can depend on the nature of the property and how it's operated. In most cases, the IRS considers rental income as passive income....
IRS issues new guidance on cryptocurrency and digital assets
The IRS recently made several updates related to cryptocurrency and digital asset transactions which investors and digital asset owners should be aware of: Revenue Ruling 2023-14 There has been debate for some time about the treatment of staking activities. Some...
IRS moving forward with ERC claims
The IRS is adding new actions to help process valid Employee Retention Credit claims amid misleading marketing that led to an exceptionally high rate of improper ERC claims. The IRS says it did not have the resources to process the...
Michigan Supreme Court upholds minimum wage increase, will affect tipped workers
On July 31, 2024, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a ruling that upheld the state's minimum wage law, which is significant because it affirmed the increases to the minimum wage that had been set by previous legislative and ballot initiative efforts. The...
IRS clarifies RMD rules on inherited IRAs but tax implications loom
The IRS and Treasury Department issued final regulations reflecting updates from the SECURE Act and SECURE 2.0 Act affecting retirement plans, IRAs, and beneficiaries, addressing additional issues related to Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) of inherited retirement accounts. Specifically, the IRS...
SR Client Question: How do I compensate nonexempt employees for travel time?
Time spent traveling during normal work hours is considered compensable work time. Normal work hours are defined as the standard hours a company is posted open, or in the case of flexible company hours, the standard hours an employee typically...
Appellate court expands excludable personal goodwill in divorce cases
A recent Florida appellate court decision will affect how personal goodwill is calculated in a divorce proceeding. Specifically, the case considered if in a marriage dissolution case, must the value of the personal goodwill of all physician-shareholders in a multi-member...
Recent ruling may increase estate values
In a recent unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that life insurance proceeds received by a corporation to redeem a deceased shareholder’s stock increases the value of the corporation for estate tax value purposes, and does so without an...
Scam Alert: Requests for payment from fraudulent email accounts
Beware of requests for vendor payments from an email address that looks similar to a trusted vendor but is not, upon close review, an exact match for the legitimate sender. Common scams now include fraudsters buying domain names that are...
SR Client Question: Are business-issued cell phones considered a fringe benefit?
The value of the business use of an employer-provided cell phone, provided primarily for non-compensatory business reasons, is excludable from an employee's income as a working condition fringe benefit. Personal use of an employer-provided cell phone, provided primarily for non-compensatory...