Client meals are 50% deductible in 2026, client gifts cap at $25 per recipient (a limit unchanged since 1962), and employer-provided meals lose their deduction this year. A service-business guide to documenting meals, travel, gifts, and marketing while staying inside IRS rules.
Direct stimulus payments were protected from IRS tax debt offsets, but Recovery Rebate Credits claimed on tax returns followed normal refund offset rules. Here's how owing back taxes affected each of the three rounds of economic impact payments and what options remain for resolving outstanding IRS balances.
A practical week-by-week, quarter-by-quarter, and year-end tax preparation checklist for small business owners — covering 2026 IRS deadlines, estimated tax payments, deductions, 1099 filing, and the bookkeeping habits that turn April from a sprint into a routine handoff.
Section 280A(g) lets business owners rent their personal residence to their company for up to 14 days per year and exclude the income from federal tax. This guide covers eligibility, fair-market rate setting, the documentation auditors expect, and the lessons from Sinopoli v. Commissioner.
The IRS uses a nine-factor test under Section 183 to decide whether your side income is a business or a hobby. After the OBBBA took effect in 2026, hobbyists report income in full but can deduct no expenses against it — making the classification more consequential than ever.
A 2026 guide to the six most common IRS penalties—their rates, calculations, and the three relief paths that can reduce or remove them, including the newly automatic First-Time Abatement.
A practical comparison of Form W-4 (the withholding certificate employees give employers) and Form W-2 (the year-end wage statement employers send the IRS), with 2026 OBBBA updates—$2,200 Child Tax Credit, qualified tips and overtime deductions—and the filing mistakes that quietly cost workers refunds.
A walkthrough of what the IRS actually does with a return after you file. 24-48 hour acceptance checks, automated math-error and information-return matching, the three Where's My Refund statuses, the 21-day refund target, common rejection reasons, and what each CP notice code means.
A 2026 guide to deducting business travel on Schedule C — covering the IRS tax home rule, the $178 CONUS per diem, 50% meal limits, 75% international business-day threshold, and the documentation habits that survive an audit.
In March 2025, FinCEN's interim final rule removed roughly 99.8% of U.S. entities from Corporate Transparency Act reporting. Domestic LLCs and corporations no longer file BOI reports, but foreign-registered companies, state-level disclosure laws, and bank due diligence still demand clean beneficial ownership records.
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