Insights

Congress created an employee retention tax credit to retain employees on their payroll during the pandemic. Recent updates to the incentive have made it even more appealing for businesses. Originally introduced through the CARES Act, the employee retention credit (ERC) was extended in the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) through June 30, 2021 and then again…

On July 15, 2021, the IRS will start sending monthly child tax credit payments to qualifying families around the country. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act passed in March 2021, families claiming the child tax credit in 2021 will receive up to $3,000 for each qualifying child ages 6-17 and up to $3,600 for…

Maybe your job, even your entire sector, has disappeared in 2020’s economic turmoil. Or perhaps you are just reaching a point at which you are ready to take the next step in your life. It’s possible you want to leave your corporate job for something more creative where you can make your own hours. Or…

E-commerce marketplaces popped up in the early 1990s and have been on the rise ever since. In the last decade, we have seen a surge of brick-and-mortar stores take advantage of this additional consumer channel. What has become commonplace has also become confusing for owners to navigate the complex regulatory environment. How can accountants keep…

Non-fungible tokens — a player in the shadowy cryptocurrency world — have increasingly been making their mark. But what are they, and how do they work? Why were they used to buy the artist Beeple’s work Everydays: The First 5000 Days at a recent Christie’s auction for $69,346,250? The answer is both simple and complicated. NFTs are unique digital tokens that use Ethereum to…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on commercial real estate. Some sectors of the industry, such as industrial property, remained vibrant, while office and retail space showed a decline. The reason is that the past year changed many things about the way we live, work and play. The future for the most affected sectors…

Accurate and up-to-date financial records play an important part in your business’s success, but the daily tasks required to maintain these records fall to the bottom of your to-do list. That’s understandable — you didn’t go into business to become a bookkeeper. Wading through managing employees, paying bills, making long-term decisions and analyzing costs take…

President Biden presented the American Families Plan in an April 28, 2021 address to Congress, which he proposed a federal spending program to support new educational and family programs. The plan contains a number of proposals, some of which include tax increases for individual taxpayers with annual income greater than $452,700 (married couples filing jointly…

The Department of Labor recently withdrew the “Independent Contractor Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act” final rule. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, “The DOL has traditionally analyzed a number of factors to consider whether a worker is an independent contractor or employee and looked at ‘the totality of the circumstances.’ The…

The IRS is providing some leeway to employee benefit plans offering health flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and dependent care assistance plans (DCAPs). Under the COVID-19-related Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, these plans now have additional discretion in 2021 and 2022 to adjust their programs to help employees better meet the unanticipated…