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Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.

Section 467 Rental Agreements: Stepped, Prepaid, and Deferred Rent Under the Tax Code's Anti-Abuse Rule

Section 467 forces accrual accounting and imputed interest on commercial leases over $250,000 with stepped, prepaid, or deferred rent — overriding cash-basis treatment, recharacterizing part of every rent payment as a deemed loan between landlord and tenant, and creating Schedule M-1 book-tax differences from ASC 842 straight-line rent.

Section 277 and 501(c)(7): Member vs. Nonmember Income for Social Clubs

Section 501(c)(7) social clubs must keep nonmember income under 35% of gross receipts and nonmember facility use under 15%, while Section 277 quarantines member-side losses for nonexempt membership organizations. This guide walks through how the two rules interact, how to allocate UBTI expenses on Form 990-T, and how to structure a chart of accounts so the member/nonmember split survives an IRS examination.

Section 1059 Extraordinary Dividend Basis Reduction: The Corporate Shareholder Trap That Turns Tax-Free Dividends Into Immediate Capital Gain

Section 1059 reduces a corporate shareholder's stock basis by the nontaxed portion of an extraordinary dividend — 5% threshold for preferred, 10% for common — when received within two years of acquisition, with excess immediately taxed as capital gain. This guide covers the thresholds, the 85-day and 365-day aggregation rules, the FMV election, the non-pro-rata redemption exceptions, and the lot-level bookkeeping that keeps corporate finance teams out of audit trouble.

Section 1033 Involuntary Conversion: A Non-Farm Business Guide to Deferring Gain on Property Destroyed, Stolen, or Condemned

Section 1033 lets non-farm businesses defer gain on property that is destroyed, stolen, or condemned if the proceeds are reinvested in qualifying replacement property within 2, 3, or 4 years. This guide covers the election mechanics on Form 4797, the similar-or-related-in-service-or-use vs. like-kind tests, the carryover-basis recapture trap, and the bookkeeping needed to survive an IRS look-back.

Pet Boarding, Daycare, and Grooming Bookkeeping: Run-Night Revenue, Add-On Allocation, and Gingr/PetExec Reconciliation

Pet boarding, daycare, and grooming operators run three businesses under one roof — services earned over time, retail earned at sale, and pass-throughs that are never revenue. This guide builds a chart of accounts that separates service lines, recognizes boarding revenue per run-night through a deferred-revenue liability, allocates add-ons to the service that produced them, and reconciles Gingr or PetExec daily summaries to the bank deposit by isolating processor fees, tips payable, deposits, and refunds.

Optometry Practice Bookkeeping: Medical vs. Vision Billing, Inventory, and Practice-Value KPIs

Independent optometry practices earn from five distinct profit centers — routine vision plans, medical insurance, frames, lenses, and contact lenses — each with different margins and billing pathways. This guide shows how to build a chart of accounts that separates VSP/EyeMed routine revenue from medical billing, capitalize frame inventory, treat contact lens supplies as deferred revenue under ASC 606, and surface the KPIs (revenue per exam, optical capture rate, normalized EBITDA) that lenders and acquirers ask about.