#tax
Tax strategies, planning, and compliance for individuals and businesses
Colorado's retail delivery fee rose from $0.28 to $0.31 per transaction on July 1, 2026 — its fifth increase since 2022. Here's who must collect it, how the $500,000 small-seller exemption works, how to report it on Form DR 1786, and which states are considering similar fees.
A working goat herd is livestock the IRS lets you treat as either inventory or depreciable business property — an election that's hard to reverse. How targeted grazing operators should handle herd cost basis, diversified revenue streams, equipment costs, and the May-to-September seasonal cash-flow cliff.
Malta's 2026 Budget Implementation Act makes displayed prices presumed VAT-inclusive by law, with only two carve-outs. The domestic small-enterprise exemption holds at €35,000 turnover, new Articles 11A/11B open a €100,000 EU-wide cross-border SME scheme with quarterly declarations, and mandatory e-invoicing is coming as Malta targets its 24.2% VAT gap.
Non-recurring engineering (NRE) for a private-label electronics run commonly costs $50,000–$200,000. This guide explains why GAAP requires capitalizing molds and tooling instead of expensing them, how units-of-production amortization flows cost into COGS per unit ($100,000 tooling rated for 500,000 units = $0.20/unit), and why firmware follows different tax rules under IRC Section 174.
Treasury Decision 10050, effective July 10, 2026, delivers the first substantial update to Qualified Domestic Trust (QDOT) regulations in three decades. Here is why the unlimited marital deduction excludes non-citizen spouses, what a QDOT requires — a U.S. trustee, an affirmative Form 706 election, and security for trusts over $2 million — and which four procedural fixes the new rules make for business owners' estates.
How reptile and exotic pet breeders should handle taxes and bookkeeping — the IRS nine-factor hobby-loss test, the one-time depreciate-vs-inventory election for breeding stock, why unhatched eggs aren't inventory, the unit-livestock-price method for hatchlings, and why a die-off of self-raised animals usually isn't deductible.
A monthly work-in-progress (WIP) schedule turns four numbers per job — contract price, estimated cost, costs to date, and billings to date — into an early warning for overbilling and underbilling, the cash-flow gaps that sink profitable builders. Spec builders also differ from contract builders on revenue recognition, since homes held as inventory typically use the completed contract method under the IRC Section 460 home construction exemption.
How to keep books for storage-unit auction flips — allocate one winning bid across dozens of items with the relative fair value method, deduct COGS only when items sell, use the Section 471(c) small-business exception, and report income even below the $20,000/200-transaction 1099-K threshold.
In Goodwill-Oikerhe v. Commissioner, a tax preparer lost every disputed deduction — dependents, property tax, vehicle expenses, S-corp flow-throughs — and drew a 75% civil fraud penalty under Section 6663, largely because no records existed. Why the Cohan rule couldn't rescue him, and what contemporaneous bookkeeping must capture to survive an audit.
Vermont's Act 164, signed June 18, 2026, raises the state R&D tax credit from 27% to 75% of the federal Section 41 credit starting in tax year 2027 and lifts the statewide cap to $3.5 million. A $50,000 federal credit now yields $37,500 in Vermont instead of $13,500 — here's how small manufacturers can prepare their Form BA-404 documentation.
New York's $1.065 billion settlement with Yellowstone Capital canceled $534 million in small-business MCA debt for over 18,000 merchants — but canceled debt is generally taxable income unless you can claim an exclusion like insolvency, so here's how to spot an illegal MCA and get your books ready.
A federal court held a non-owner corporate officer personally liable for $1,880,987.96 of a company's tax debt under 31 U.S.C. § 3713, the Federal Priority Statute, because he helped pay other creditors while the insolvent company owed the IRS. Here is how the doctrine works, who is exposed, and a practical checklist for winding down an insolvent business.
