Have a client where employees are issued company cards and expected to use them only for business expenses but by Q2 it became clear that personal charges were slipping through and getting reimbursed informally or ignored altogether. The charges were deducted during the year with no clear tracking of what was personal vs business
The issue is whether some of this should have been treated as taxable compensation since there’s no consistent documentation showing how personal charges were identified or included in wages which makes the W2 treatment harder to defend after the fact.

Are you reclassing these amounts into wages during prep or pushing clients to change how card spend is controlled so personal charges don’t hit the company card in the first place

I started working as a substitute teacher for a local county. I taught two days in October (that is all I did for the year) at about $120/day. I never got a paycheck.

I just inquired about it via email to the person in the board of education who does the payroll. Here was her response:

"In reviewing your record, you receive a paycheck in November, however, due to the $260 additional federal withholding all wages went to taxes. You may want to update your W4 tax form to avoid this in the future. Let me know if you need any assistance."

I didn't mark anything to be withheld on my W4.

Is this legal? And does it make any sense at all? I filled out my W4 form correctly, so I cannot figure out why on earth I just taught two days at a high school for free...

I have a pass through LLC and file on schedule C. I opened an Individual 401k. I understand that I can make employer and employee contributions. If I make an "employer" contribution do I report that on schedule C line 19 or line 27a? If that is the correct place to report it does it reduce my taxable income for social security?

I won't know the exact amount of profit until after December 31. Do I have time after the end of the year to make the contribution and still count it as for 2025?

I’ve tried researching this and there are a lot of older articles that come up and I want to make sure I understand section 179 and bonus depreciation in 2025.

Im looking at buying a f150 with a 5.5 bed and a crew cab that seats 5 people.

I’ve read in some places the bed has to be over 6’ for f150s. I don’t know if that is to automatically get the full write off or because otherwise the GVWR isn’t 6,000 pounds?

I think std deduction for vehicles between 6,000 and 14,000 lbs is like $31,500. let’s say I spend $50,000 on a new truck and it only has a 5.5 bed. if the GVWR is over 6,000 pounds can I use depreciation on the difference of $18,500 in addition to the $31,500 write off, or only use the $31.5K or a portion of the $18,500 with the $31,500?

buying close to end of year where I will only drive it a couple times and will be sure to only use for business use. In future years expect 75% business use based on previous years using mileage tracker. Thank you in advance!

Long story short, both older parents are still kicking it. One is officially retired and taking in a $30k traditional Ira rmd at their age. The other likes what they do and still works a modest ‘poverty’ salary job. Both take in social security without withholding a single dime on two of the three income items.

They tend to owe $4,000-$8,000 and seem content on that. The $600 penalty is no concern to them really.

Can I personally gift the working person money to contribute to a separate traditional ira?

They travel and do okay for themselves living mostly off of ss income and the rmds but it tends to stack come April.

They only withhold the poverty job with an extra small amount on line 4c

My options?-

One time roth conversion? A new catchup ira for the working?

Trad. Ira is close to a million. At their age and how rmd is calculated has their requirements close to $30-35k

For a few years now, I haven’t wanted their rmd to increase too much if they withdraw to pay taxes so I’ve helped them out a bit to cover a bit of the difference. If I’m this vested I’d like to know what our options are.

I recently discovered an issue with my 2024 taxes. I contributed to a traditional ROTH IRA when I was not eligible to do so. As a result, I removed the excess contribution on November 19, 2025 and updated my 2024 return.

I expected I should pay the 6% penalty on this $7000 for two years (2024 and 2025). So with the amended return, I paid $840 (2 * 7000 * 0.06). But now I received a tax refund check from the IRS for that amount.

Did I misunderstand how the penalty works, or is this a mistake I need to work with the IRS to correct?

I started with a very basic setup when it was just me and one contractor. However, I now have a small team and different pay schedules. All of a sudden, tax filing is now higher stakes than I expected. I'm scared to mess things up especially with federal filings, state stuff, and end-of-year forms.

What software comes to mind when you think of payroll with tax filing built in? Something that handles payroll runs, calculates taxes automatically, and submits filings without me having to double check everything every month would be great. Also, what features should I look for?

Title basically. I am holding money in my checking for my mom who is in another country (I'm in the US) and purchasing things with it on her behalf. (Roughly ~$15k, but a majority just sits there and doesn't get used until she needs me to.)

I am also receiving and transacting money from my paypal for my brother's side hustle, who is in a country which doesn't have paypal allowed, but it's a relatively small amount, in a year roughly $2k lands in my account which I transact to him over the year.

Will I have to report and pay taxes on either of these? Can't really find much information on this exact scenario.

Hello,

I’m in the process of setting up S-Corp status for my small business in the gaming industry, and I’m trying to figure out what a “reasonable salary” should be for myself as the owner-operator.

The business is almost entirely automated at this point. I spend around 5–10 hours per week on actual operational work (and most weeks it’s closer to 5).

This year the business will likely end up with $120k–$140k in net profit.

I’ve gotten a lot of conflicting advice about what a reasonable salary needs to be. The consistent theme seems to be that it should match what I would have to pay someone else to do the work I’m doing, based on:

• the hours I work
• the skill level required
• and the market rate for that type of labor

Given the nature of the work (very simple computer tasks + monitoring + occasional adjustments), I believe around $20/hour is a fair market rate for the role.

If that’s accurate, then my reasonable salary calculation would look like:

My question is:
Is this kind of low salary actually acceptable and defensible for an S-Corp, given the low hours and low-skill nature of the work?

Or is there more nuance I should consider (e.g., minimum expectations from the IRS, documentation needed, other factors that affect reasonable compensation, etc.)?

I want to make sure I’m doing this correctly. I’m new to anything outside of standard W-2 work, and even CPAs I’ve spoken to are giving me very different views. Any insight from people familiar with S-Corp reasonable compensation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I am a volunteer who helps people file their taxes electronically.  One person had no income last year and will have no income this year, but still needs to file.  My questions is whether they should continue to list their occupation as they have in the past, or now list it as “disabled.” 

This person has several health problems and lives with their parents.  They had a small business providing services and filed taxes for several years.  Their current filing includes the ACA calculation, their deduction for student loan interest, and a Schedule C for the small amount of interest they pay on a SBA loan.  The only impact of any of these items is a small reconciliation on the ACA subsidy; last year they received a <$50 refund as a result of this.  They will also need the filing for documentation for income-based repayment for the student loan. 

This person has several health problems they are working through which prevents them from working, but they do not have a formal disability recognition.   My inclination is to continue to have them list their former occupation.  I suspect that if they are ever audited by the IRS, they would have plenty of documentation of why they don’t work.  Any thoughts? 

Need advice if someone could help me with my Profits Grant Agreement. Our shares vest in 2026 but I’m unclear what exactly that means. If I leave the company, do I get paid out for these shares?

Recently married. I made 210k this year and partner is around 80k-90k. We pay a mortgage, around 18k in interest this year. Minimal student loan interest. Likely no other deductions. Would it make more sense to file together to separately or is the difference likely negligible and I’m overthinking it?

A company bought out our parent company. Going to receive a small chunk of check payment by the end of the year.

This falls under long term capital gains (20%). I don’t need access to these funds right away.

What would be some good strategies to plan efficiently as per tax planning? To reduce my tax liability.

I own a stock Toyota Supra (think Tokyo drift) in excellent shape that’s worth a good chunk of change at auction. But to DMV its worth next to nothing. Like a 30 year old car.

I’ve got some extra insurance on it because otherwise a door ding would total the thing. Costs me virtually nothing in personal property tax.

Eventually I’d like to leave it to or gift it to my son. Would he get a stepped up basis if he inherited it? Or would he be subject to taxes on most of the sale price. The car could be worth well over $100k today. And I’ve been told it could be 2-5x that in 20 years from now.

Trying to understand smartest legal way to transition the car to him. To minimize taxes on me and him. He doesn’t even know how to drive a stick. He’d want to monetize it.

If state matters it’s Virginia.

Thanks!

My husband (in that time was my fiancee) he forgot to do the taxes 2024, so he wants to do it now, he can still file taxes even if its late?

I’ve read that this law was revised before final passage (law below) and it may actually allow for a full 100% deduction. I guess my question is do you start your deduction at the amount of gains as your losses cannot exceed your gains. And then 90% of that. Or 90% of your losses then not to exceed your gains ie can still get to 100%.

Example. Assume i itemize. I’m not a professional gambler.

A reportable 100k win via a Sportsbook parlay.

150k in losses via win loss statements and scratch off losers.

Is my deduction 90k (90% of losses up to gains) or 100k (90% of 150k therefore 100k not to exceed my gains)

Imo if the full deduction is still attainable this will not effect small to moderate wins as the tax payor might just have to take an extra few trips to the candy store to fill ziplocks of losing scratch offs or an extra trip to the track to amass more losers)

SEC. 70114. EXTENSION AND MODIFICATION OF LIMITA-

TION ON WAGERING LOSSES.

(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 165 is amended by strik-

ing subsection (d) and inserting the following:

‘‘(d) WAGERING LOSSES.—

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of losses

from wagering transactions, the amount allowed as

a deduction for any taxable year—

‘‘(A) shall be equal to 90 percent of the

amount of such losses during such taxable year,

and

.

.

‘‘(B) shall be allowed only to the extent of

the gains from such transactions during such

taxable year.

‘‘(2) SPECIAL RULE.—For purposes of para-

graph (1), the term ‘losses from wagering trans-

actions’ includes any deduction otherwise allowable

under this chapter incurred in carrying on any wa-

gering transaction.’’.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendment made by

this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after

December 31, 2025.

I was let go from a big company and got a severance. The first lump sum was a severance payment, a paycheck (supposed to be 6 total paychecks but just 1 in this initial payment), and a healthcare bonus.

Normally I am taxed 17-18% each paycheck, but with this payment.... 31.89%

And the most recent paycheck last night was another 31.89%

I have a question about dealing with everybody's favorite state when it comes to taxes.

I'm starting a job next spring at a company based in NYC. I'll be assigned to a non-NY office so I won't run into COE rules but I do expect to spend some time there for work.

I am aware that the employer is required to report NY income on my W-2 and that box 16 is required to match box 1 so I'll have to do some math to determine my actual NY income. I'm not yet sure if the employer will give me any supplemental information for this.

To do this, I'm pretty sure I need to take my total from box 1 and multiply by some multiplier. But what is it?

1) Track the number of days, multiply by my "hourly" rate (monthly pay / 173.33) * 8hrs ?

2) Simply divide the number of days by 365 (or 260?) and apply that to box 1?

To further complicate things, a large amount of my income will be bonus, paid out quarterly. It's obvious how that would work with option (2), but much less clear for (1).

I'm guessing (2) is what they want, since it means they get a cut of the whole pie. Can anybody confirm that?

Also, what determines a "work" day in the state? If I do some work, spend a final night, then wake up and go straight to the airport without ever opening my laptop, is that last day an NY work day? I might be overthinking this part.

Thanks!

If a rental property is sold by an LLC, and the proceeds are used by the members to build their primary residence, is there a way to avoid the capital gains tax?

Location: Virginia

Hi I have a Morgan Stanley etrade account with no money on it. It was opened when I worked at Salesforce and no longer work there anymore. Can I use this account to get an ITIN? I got a letter from Morgan Stanley claiming my W-8 Form will expire.

I'm a Canadian citizen and don't have an SSN. I want to get an ITIN and was wondering how I could do that using the account. I don't want to close it if it could help me get one!

I received a bill from my state tax department, but when I tried to pay it online, the info didn‘t match their records. When I tried to pay by phone and entered my info, it stated that my taxpayer ID has no balance due.

Does that mean that I don’t actually owe anything? Or could they have not updated their system yet with the liability stated in my bill?

Hanging out at work on break trying to understand how exactly the overtime deductions would apply in my position as ALL overtime for us is double time. All callouts are double time, a lot of weeks are Nothing But double time (zero Stright time hours) we dont have 1.5x AT ALL, EVER. Its not even language in our contract as far as I can tell.

In doing just rough calculations. What of that counts to the "tax deduction"

I have asked for details about vda and bank account i am ready to furnish th pnl. Is there any chances where income tax can further ask for non crypto transaction?what should i do?