Exchange-Traded Funds and Investment Areas for Consideration – Foster Financial
Exchange-Traded Funds commonly referred to as ETF’s are marketable securities. These funds follow large asset groups. The assets could be comprised of an entire index like the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq. It could also hold bonds or commodities. The strength of an exchange-traded fund lies in its ability to spread across broad fields. ETF’s […]
What to Do If You Receive an IRS Summons – Foster Financial
The United States’ tax system relies on the integrity of the taxpayers. The IRS assumes that individuals and businesses file their taxes correctly unless they find an issue with a tax return. When something looks wrong to them, they either correct the issue on their own, or they take action to try to find […]
Six Major Flags that Can Lead to an IRS Audit – Foster Financial
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) relies on data to assess your tax returns. It takes the information you provide and analyzes it against the correlating evidence provided by businesses that paid you as an employee, sub-contractor, self-employed business, or freelancer. They will also apply statistical data against your information to determine whether the deductions you’ve […]
Are Higher Interest Rates a good thing for small businesses? – Foster Financial
Federal Reserve Fund Rates At first glance, it would seem that rising interest rates might be bad for small businesses. Wouldn’t those higher Federal Reserve fund rates cause higher interest rates on consumer credit card balances? Higher loan rates? Wouldn’t this cause reduced consumer spending? But this Forbes article by Brock Blake submits the contrarian […]
(Part Two) The Winners and Losers of the Tax Cuts – Foster Financial
Welcome to the final part of this series of articles. The first part can be found here. Now that we’ve gone in over detail some of the people who are benefitting from this tax bill, as well as those who aren’t, let’s recap quickly. The individual taxpayer is winning short-term and losing in the […]
(Part One) The Winners and Losers of the Tax Cuts – Foster Financial
On Friday President Trump signed the long-awaited Republican-crafted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law; something he promised to deliver to constituents by Christmas. The new bill focuses on granting large tax breaks for corporations as well as individuals, for the time being. Additionally, the bill repeals the infamous individual mandate originally accompanying Obama’s Affordable […]
When Should Business Owners Convert From LLC To S Corp – Foster Financial
The convenience of setting up an LLC makes it the business structure of choice for many beginning entrepreneurs. The situation works well for most new businesses as LLCs are uncomplicated and relatively inexpensive while providing new business owners with liability protections and a variety of other valuable benefits. However, it is important for entrepreneurs to understand […]
Common Tax Scams and How to Avoid Them – Foster Financial
There are thousands of people who have lost millions of dollars as well as their personal information to different tax scams. Scammers use the phone, email, and even regular mail in order to set up businesses and individuals. These scammers even target tax and payroll professionals. When it comes to tax scams it is important […]
How to Pay Your Estimated Taxes – Foster Financial
If you’re self-employed, then you are probably familiar with estimated taxes. Every year, people who are self-employed have to calculate how much they expect to earn for the year, and then figure out what the taxes would be for that amount of income. The resulting estimated taxes are paid to the IRS on a quarterly […]
Employees- Do you know how much they really cost? – Foster Financial
Picture this. You own a small business and have 10 employees. If each employee is paid $10 an hour and works 40 hours a week, then your total employee cost is $400 a week, right? Oh, if it was only that simple. When you calculate how much an employee costs a business, there is so […]