Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.
Senior move managers bill roughly $3,000 per three-to-five-week project across hourly labor, flat fees, marked-up supplies, and estate-sale commissions. This guide shows how to split that revenue by stream, hold deposits and client sale proceeds as liabilities, keep pass-through vendor bills off the P&L, and budget NASMM dues and certification — plus the five numbers to review monthly.
Section 1234A treats gain or loss from the cancellation, lapse, or termination of a right in capital-asset property as capital — so a forfeited earnest-money deposit is usually a short-term capital loss, a lapsed option premium is short-term capital gain, and a merger break fee is a capital loss capped at $3,000 of ordinary income per year for individuals. Services contracts, Section 1231 business property, and debt retirements fall outside the statute and stay ordinary.
An S corporation distribution is tax-free only to the extent of the Accumulated Adjustments Account once the company carries C-corporation earnings and profits. This guide covers what moves AAA up and down, the four-step distribution ordering rules, a worked $40,000 example with two opposite outcomes, and five bookkeeping mistakes that turn owner draws into taxable dividends.
A qualified sponsorship payment is tax-free under IRC Section 513(i), while advertising revenue is taxed at the 21% UBIT rate and triggers Form 990-T once unrelated business income reaches $1,000. This guide draws the acknowledgment-versus-advertising line the regulations use — qualitative language, price claims, exclusive-provider clauses, periodical placements, contingent amounts, and the 2% de minimis threshold for return benefits — and gives an eight-step screen to run before signing a sponsor contract.
A provisional patent application costs $325, $130, or $65 depending on entity size, establishes a priority date, and lets you say "patent pending" — but it is never examined and goes abandoned exactly 12 months after filing, a statutory deadline that cannot be extended. Here is what to file, how to qualify for micro-entity status, and how to track the costs.
Nearly 40 states cap emergency price increases — California at 10% above your own pre-emergency price — and most statutes require no proof of bad intent, only an increase past the threshold. Penalties reach $5,000 per violation in North Carolina and $20,000 in Texas, and the cost-justification defense works only if dated price snapshots and supplier invoices already exist.
For tax years beginning in 2026 the Section 448(c) gross-receipts threshold is $32 million, up from $31 million. OBBBA adds a reported $80 million lane for qualifying manufacturers and lets small businesses elect retroactive 2022–2024 R&D expensing under Section 174A by July 6, 2026 — here is the threshold math, who is forced onto accrual, and how a method change works.
New Jersey is converting home improvement contracting from registration to licensure under P.L.2023 c.237, with licensing provisions effective February 1, 2026. Registration still costs $110 a year, requires $500,000 in general liability coverage and a displayed 13VH number, and any contract over $500 must be written — violations are automatic Consumer Fraud Act unlawful practices carrying treble damages plus attorney's fees, while unregistered contractors generally cannot sue to collect payment.
Negligent hiring claims come from customers and bystanders, not employees, and turn on one question — did you exercise reasonable care before this hire? Here is the screening routine (references, role-calibrated background checks, credential verification, documented rationale) and the FCRA, fair-chance, and EEO rules it has to satisfy.
Florida, Texas, and Louisiana bar the company that assesses mold from remediating the same property for 12 months, so dual owners run two licensed entities — separate EINs and bank accounts, written shared-cost agreements, and monthly intercompany settlements are what prove the wall is real.
Michigan's motor fuel excise tax rose from 31 to 52.4 cents per gallon on January 1, 2026, while the 6% sales tax on fuel disappeared — a swap that costs more below a $3.57 pump price and less above it. Here is the breakeven math, the fleet-level dollar impact, and five recalculations covering cost per mile, surcharges, reimbursements, IFTA filings, and fuel bookkeeping.
CMS released an updated Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage (Form CMS-R-131) on March 13, 2026, mandatory for fee-for-service providers since May 12, 2026. With chiropractic improper payments at 30.4% and nearly 90% of those errors from insufficient documentation, this guide covers ABN trigger points, the GA/GZ/GY modifiers, and the bookkeeping that turns signed notices into collected cash.
