#tax
Tax strategies, planning, and compliance for individuals and businesses
TikTok Shop's 1099-K reports unadjusted gross sales, not net payout — referral fees, payment processing charges, and affiliate commissions typically consume 30-45% of that total before it reaches a seller's bank account, and untracked fees can inflate taxable income.
Automatic gratuities fail the IRS's four-factor tip test and must be taxed as wages, which excludes them from the FICA tip credit, the FLSA overtime rate, and the new "no tax on tips" deduction.
Bartering income is taxable at fair market value the moment goods or services change hands, and for sole proprietors it flows into Schedule C gross receipts and triggers 15.3% self-employment tax, even when no Form 1099-B ever arrives.
The EU's Non-Union OSS scheme lets US freelancers and SaaS founders selling digital products to EU consumers file one quarterly VAT return instead of registering separately in all 27 member states.
US importers of record can file IEEPA tariff refunds in CBP's CAPE portal for entries from Feb 2025 — steps and documents.
The IRS retires the FIRE e-filing system on December 31, 2026, requiring all 1099 and W-2 filers to switch to IRIS for tax year 2026 returns, and a new Transmitter Control Code alone can take 45 or more days to approve.
Key person insurance is a policy a business owns on a critical employee, paying the company 5 to 10 times that person's annual compensation if they die or become disabled, and premiums are not tax-deductible under IRC Section 264(a)(1) unless Section 101(j) notice-and-consent is completed before the policy is issued.
GAAP requires inventory to be reported at the lower of cost or net realizable value under ASC 330; here's how to identify obsolete and slow-moving stock, calculate the write-down, and record it while satisfying the IRS's stricter subnormal-goods test under Treasury Regulation §1.471-2(c).
GitHub Sponsors issues a 1099-NEC above $600, Patreon's 1099-K only triggers past the OBBBA-restored $20,000/200-transaction threshold, and Open Collective's fiscal host absorbs the paperwork entirely — a platform-by-platform breakdown of sponsorship tax reporting and the hobby-vs-business test that determines self-employment tax.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act's Section 174A permanently restores immediate tax deduction of domestic software development and R&E costs for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024, reversing the five-year amortization rule that had strained small tech companies' cash flow since 2022.
Auditors extrapolate the certificate deficiency rate found in a sample across the entire audit period, so a handful of missing resale or exemption certificates can turn into a six-figure sales tax assessment — here are the six practices that keep certificate files audit-ready.
Cash accounting records revenue when money is received and expenses when paid; accrual accounting records revenue when earned and expenses when incurred. IRS Section 448 mandates the accrual method once a business's three-year average gross receipts exceed the $32 million threshold for 2026, and changing methods later requires Form 3115 plus a Section 481(a) adjustment.
