Liz Smith, CPA, MSTFP

ProConnect Tax Online, a personal favorite for cloud-based professional tax preparation software, is particularly useful for firms using QuickBooks Online Accountant. It provides powerful features, such as missing data review and document management, and is priced on a pay-per-return basis with no annual fee. It also has a K-1 package and a tax planner with…

Lacerte Tax is Intuit’s premier tax solution. It can be used for complicated tax returns, such as oil and gas company filings. It can also import balances from QuickBooks Accountant Desktop and integrate with Intuit Practice Management. While pay-per-return pricing is available, you must contact a sales representative for other pricing information. A free version…

Drake Tax is a sound, affordable software choice that I recommend for professional tax preparation of low-volume individual and state tax returns. Useful features like DoubleCheck and LookBack will help streamline the tax return preparation and filing process. LookBack helps you compare prior and current year activity, while DoubleCheck assists tax preparers with the review…

While similar, each of these forms has a distinct use. Schedule F: For farmers who are operating farms on their own land or materially participate in crop-sharing arrangements. Schedule E: For farmland owners who lease their farmland for fixed cash rent. Form 4835: For farmland owners who lease their farmland as part of a crop-sharing…

ProSeries Tax, a versatile tax preparation software from Intuit, is designed for professional tax preparers. With strong user reviews, ProSeries is known to be a solid choice for professional tax preparation. It provides features such as e-file management, K-1 data transfers, and an assortment of firm management tools. ProSeries Tax software pricing for the pay-per-return…

CCH Axcess Tax, a cloud-based professional tax preparation software for accounting firms of any size, is a single component of the full firm management system offered by CCH. Having worked with small firms, my opinion is that those with fewer than 100 clients may find some of the firm management components to be cost-prohibitive. Pricing…

The net investment income tax (NIIT) is an additional 3.8% tax on top of your regular income tax. It applies to investment income like dividends and interest. This tax can impact any taxpayer with income above thresholds assigned by the IRS to each filing status. The applicability threshold for NIIT is $250,000 for married taxpayers…

Active participation in rental property requires an individual to own at least 10% of the rental property and participate in management decisions regarding the property. By actively participating, the rental property owner receives a $25,000 rental loss allowance that permits the deduction of up to $25,000 in rental losses against nonpassive sources of income like…

Section 179 and bonus depreciation are two advantageous tax deductions for optimizing your tax savings. By claiming either or both of these deductions on your tax return, you can more quickly deduct a substantial amount of your acquisition cost. While Section 179 and bonus depreciation are similar, there are differences in the calculation, limitations, and…

Our guide walks you through how to complete Form 4835, from getting the form, providing identifying business information, and completing the parts, to filing the form. The form is generally used by farm owners who receive a portion of farming profits in place of rental payments but don’t conduct the farming operations themselves. The rental…

Qualified Improvement Property (QIP) is an asset classification for certain property improvements made to the interior of a nonresidential real estate building. The improvements must be installed after the taxpayer placed the building in service and have a 15-year tax life. QIP can be depreciated using both bonus and section 179 depreciation—these methods allow taxpayers…

From personal experience, I can attest that the IRS is fairly vigilant about disallowing expenses that do not meet the criteria for deduction. Deductible business expenses must be both ordinary and necessary. This means that deductible expenses should be customary for the industry in which the business operates, and the expenses should be useful. Expenses…