Self-Employment Taxes

Posted November 11, 2018

The Watson CPA Group and Jason Watson have released the 2019 Edition of Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps. 330 pages of pure pleasure! We went through a mini slamma jamma revision shortly after the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 including Section 199A deductions for small businesses, and now we just completed our major revision following IRS Proposed Regulations 1.199A and other mid-year after the dust has settled analysis. Riveting!

We have several examples showing how the Section 199A works, why S corporations remain a great tool for tax savings and why reverting to a C corporation is a bad idea. We also discuss entity formation, S Corp elections, reasonable shareholder salary and business tax deductions. Frankly the Section 199A stuff is only about 40 pages of the material… the rest is good ol’ fashion business stuff!

It is available in paperback for $24.95 from Amazon and as an eBook for Kindle for $17.95. Our book is also available for purchase as a PDF from ClickBank for $12.95. Why do we all love 95 cents? We all know that 12.95 is really 13 bucks. At least we are not like gas stations… $12.949. Silly! Yet we digress. Apple iBook, Barnes and Noble Nook, among others are being updated… since these formats are more “static” and given the quantity of revisions, etc., we are delaying these file formats.

Before you spend your money, we encourage you to review the highlights below and download a sample of Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps by using the following button, or the electronic yet full version from our KnowledgeBase (being updated the week of November 12)-

But if you saying to yourself, “Self, just get the darn book and start taking care of business” then click on one of the buttons below-

Here are some testimonials to make you feel better (of course we only picked the good ones… just like referrals)-

Ronny R. says, “I enjoyed it! Gave me lots to talk about with my CPA.“

Britt S., Esq. says, “Thank you so much for speaking with me last week! You are amazing and I greatly appreciate all of the information you emailed me. I am in complete adoration of your book!”

Lisa A. says, “Detailed information about the pros and cons of creating a small business. Lots of great detail about the tax benefits and consequences. NOT a ‘dummies’ book – it assumes you already have some background knowledge.“

Brett B. says, “I read your ‘Comprehensive S Corp’ book. Wow. You blew my mind. I thought I understood S Corps.”

Larry M. says, “I found it helpful, but could have gone into a little more detail. There is one main way to save money as an s corp, and how to determine ‘how much you can get away with’ could have been expanded on a bit more. Otherwise, pretty good guide.“

M.S. says, “Great read for first time self-employed corp owners. Covers all the main basic of taxes and caveats. Well written and simple to understand for those not well versed in tax law.“

If you buy our 330-page book and think that we didn’t help you understand small business tax law or the benefits of S corporations, let us know. We never want you to feel like you wasted your money. If you are ready to add some insightful reading into your day, click on one of the preferred formats. Amazon is processed by Amazon, and the PDF is safely processed by ClickBank who will email you the PDF as an attachment.

Warning- we are in the middle of converting to MOBI and EPUB eBook formats (painful), so please use the Amazon (paperback) and PDF buttons below-

We can send you the eBook formats once our conversion is completed (around January 2018) at no charge if you have already purchased the paperback or PDF versions. Simply email us for your courtesy copy.

Section 199A Pass Thru Tax Reform

Section 199A deduction also known as the Qualified Business Income deduction arises from the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017. This is a significant tax break for small business owners but there are rules and limits of course. We have written a short article which outlines what is considered a qualified business for the qualified business income deduction including the dreaded specified service trade definitions (which is easily summed up as “any trade or business where the principal asset is the reputation or skill” of the owner). Click on the button below for our article-

S corporations remain a critical tax saving tool for two reasons. First, the usual self-employment tax savings remains intact for all business owners including specified service trades or businesses. Second, a business owner might need to pay W-2 wages to himself or herself to not be limited by income, and only corporations can pay W-2 wages to owners (in other words, an LLC cannot without an S Corp election). Read the article above for riveting information!

This information is also incorporated into our book including examples and calculations. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Book Edition

Current release is 2019 Edition which includes the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 and Section 199A deductions for small businesses. We might have additional updates as the IRS provides further guidance. Please email us to let us know you want an updated version, and we will ship free of charge. You may also want to visit our blog to catch up on some recent guidance and other issues surrounding small businesses-

Avoid Self-Employment Taxes

How can I avoid self-employment taxes? This simple question was the inspiration for creating an article describing the benefits of an S Corporation. That original article, which was about four pages long, quickly became a series of KnowledgeBase articles on the Watson CPA Group website. The articles touched on basic topics such as how to elect S Corp status, shareholder payroll, reasonable salary determination and liability protection. Those broad topics demanded much more information, both horizontally by spanning into more related issues, and vertically by digging deeper into the granular yet riveting levels of the tax code. Beyond general S Corp benefits, our 2018 edition of this book will show you-

• Entity Structures, and Custom Multi-Entity Arrangements
• The Fallacy of Nevada Corps
• State Taxes, Nexus, FBA Problems, and Liability
• S Corp Benefits, Tax Savings
• Avoiding Self-Employment Taxes
• The 185 Reasons an S Corp or LLC Might Stink
• Forming and Operating an S Corp
• Late S Corp Election
• Determining Reasonable S Corp Shareholder Salary
• Section 199A Business Tax Deduction
• Tax Deductions, Fringe Benefits, Kids on Payroll and Cars
• Properly Paying for Health Insurance
• Small Business Retirement Planning with Your S Corp

Each week we receive several phone calls and emails from small business owners and other CPAs across the country who have read our Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps and praised the wealth of information. Regardless of your current situation, whether you are considering starting your own business or entertaining a contracting gig, or you are an experienced business owner, the contents of this book are for you.

This book is written with the general taxpayer in mind. Too many resources simply regurgitate complex tax code without explanation. While in some cases tax code and court opinions are duplicated verbatim because of precision of the words, this book strives to explain many technical concepts in layperson terms with some added humor and opinions. We believe you will find this book educational as well as amusing.

Here are some additional resources-

S Corp Package

The Watson CPA Group specializes in S corporations which have a small number of shareholders, and are often just a one-person show. Did you know that 95% of all S Corps have only one shareholder, and 99% of all S Corps have three or fewer shareholders? Because small business is a core competency for us, we have created an S corp package that includes the following (No, the S doesn’t stand for stormtrooper)-

* A la Carte fee ranges are approximates. 90% of our clients fit into these fee ranges, but there are outliers. We have a handful of clients with over 30 rentals; their individual tax return is north of $2,500.

Couple of other things to keep in mind- we make very little profits on payroll processing… we offer it as a convenience to our clients. One throat to choke with a single call can be reassuring but if you want to run your payroll, go for it! And… the benefit of the Watson CPA Group preparing both tax returns is that we slide things around depending on income limitations, phaseouts, alternative minimum tax (AMT), Section 199A deduction optimization, etc. Having our arms around both can yield some good tax savings!

Some more things to consider- Since only a partial year remains, our usual annual fee is pro-rated to not charge you for services you didn’t use (like payroll and consultation). However, a large chunk of our annual fee is tax preparation which is typically a fixed amount of $1,300 (both corporate and personal). Whether we onboard you in January, July or December, we have to prepare a full year tax return. This increases the monthly fee for the remaining months of 2018 but the monthly fee will later decrease in January of 2019 to reflect the amounts above. Yeah, we make it sound like 2019 is just around the corner.

No BS

We are not salespeople. We are not putting lipstick on a pig, and trying to convince you to love it, even if Tom Ford’s Wild Ginger looks amazing. Our job remains being professionally detached, giving you information and letting you decide.

We see far too many crazy schemes and half-baked ideas from attorneys and wealth managers. In some cases, they are good ideas. In most cases, all the entities, layering and mixed ownership is only the illusion of precision. Just because you can complicate the crap out of your life doesn’t mean you must.

Section 199A Deduction Optimization

Section 199A is a derivative of the recent Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017. In a nutshell, business owners including rental property owners will enjoy a 20% deduction based on the qualified business income. There are limitations based on income, W-2 wages and depreciation. As a result, there is some optimization that is necessary for a small business owner to get the most from the Section 199A deduction. On one hand we want to reduce W-2 salaries to shareholders to minimize self-employment taxes. On the other hand, we want to increase W-2 salaries so they do not limit the amount of Section 199A that is deducted. Read our full Section 199A Qualified Business Income article by clicking on the button below-

Our Business Expertise

As mentioned elsewhere we primarily focus on small business owners and their unique consultation and tax preparation needs. With 16 full-time consultation professionals including Certified Public Accountants and Certified Financial Planners on our team, the Watson CPA Group consults on corporate structures, S corp elections (even late S corp elections back to January), tax strategies, business coaching, industry analysis, executive benefits, retirement planning including individual 401k plans, exit strategies, business valuations, income tax modeling and tax representation.

We also work with business law attorneys in California, Texas and Colorado for business owners who have additional needs such as buying or selling a business including employee stock ownership plans and partner buy-ins. We also coordinate with Polycomp and RPS to create age-based profit sharing plans and cash balance (defined benefit) plans. We can run point on whatever your business needs so the communication is effective and efficient.

The button below links to our Periodic Business Review (PBR) Agenda. We use this throughout the year as a checklist for our business clients. We can also use it for any type of business consultation. Here are some other buttons that you might be interested in as well.

Click the button below to schedule a 40 minute consultation. Our fee is $150, but we credit that back to you if you decide to engage us for future services. Low risk, high- reward.

How does all this work? Talk to us today to not just get started, but to get started on the right track!

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