Budding Entrepreneurship – Some good tips on running your own business and thus being more in control of your destiny.

Nine Out Of Ten Financial Advisors Recommend Mutual Funds That Cheat – This is satire, in case any DemonRats (who are generally brain dead and devoid of common sense) might think this is real.

Earth to Planet Corzine — Tax Cuts Are Working – A little counterbalance to the Left’s lies about the effects of tax cuts. With the DemonRats, it’s like the classic “who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?” when they try to claim that the tax cuts are not responsible for the improving economy. That direct cause and effect was the very real reason the lefties were fighting so hard to prevent the passage of the tax cuts in the first place. They knew that, with an improving economy, Bush couldn’t be stopped from winning a second term.

Effort to dump income tax gains steam – This would be a major step forward, but only if a national sales tax replaces the income tax and isn’t just added on top of it.

Proving once again that too many people are setting up corporations without having a clue as to what they are doing, I received the following question via my AnswerWay.com account.

Hello,

I am president of an s-corporation in Florida and I have not had any income or expenses as I did not use that company yet. I would like to make sure I have filled in properly my 1120S income tax return.

Having had no activity I have put zeros in all the fields and I am declaring $0 for tax due.

My questions are :

Is this ok?

Is there any other form or schedule that I have to send in with?

What about my personal 1040EZ income tax return? Do I have to mention anything about the s-corp. on it?

If I had had some income, where would I have mentioned it?

I thank you very much for your help.

My answer:

You are correct in sending in an 1120S with zeroes in the appropriate places. Even if a corporation has no activity, you must file a tax return with IRS telling them that fact. If you don’t, IRS could very easily come back years later and accuse you of failing to report huge amounts of income.

As a shareholder of an S corp, you should not be using 1040EZ for your personal taxes. You need to use the regular 1040 and attach Page 2 of Schedule E to show your S corp and its pass-through income for this year. Even if it’s zero, you should show it on your 1040.

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

Kerry Kerstetter

I like these quotes from Thomas Sowell

No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.




To liberals, “compassion” means giving less productive people the fruits of the efforts of more productive people. But real compassion means enabling less productive people to become more productive themselves. That way, the poor have not only more material things but also more self-respect, as well as more respect from others, and the society as a whole has a higher standard of living and less internal strife.

The third rail – Good overview of the Social Security house of cards by George Will.

DeMint calls for tax changes – If anyone needs a concise explanation of why many corporations have shifted operations out of the US, it’s this:

America’s corporate tax rate — about 35 percent — is the second-highest in the world, DeMint said. That makes it more expensive for U.S. companies to export products than it is for companies in other countries to export them, he said.

Our rulers think they can just raise taxes on businesses and they will just gladly pay them without making any changes in how they conduct their operations. The truth with businesses is the same as it is for everything else in life. When costs go up, management looks for less expensive alternatives. It’s not rocket science; but such common sense evades our rulers who are driven to raise taxes and then are shocked when their targets take steps to avoid paying them.

I’ve never kept it a secret that I have little patience or sympathy for people who whine about having terrible jobs, or no jobs at all, as if they are entitled to being handed a well paying career on a silver platter. Whether it’s the salary, the fringe benefits, the retirement plans, or the work location, the only way you can be sure it’s to your liking is if it’s your own business. Of course, it has always been very obvious that many people are just not cut out to be more than worker bees in the business world.

How to Stop Receiving Credit Card Offers – These steps should reduce the volume of snail mail solicitations; but won’t do much about the millions of offers sent out by spammers because those scumbags don’t obey any rules or do-not-solicit lists.

Former Harrison Abstract owner faces theft charges – Dian Brown’s trial for stealing a million dollars from escrow funds is currently scheduled to begin next week, March 12. It will probably be postponed again for any number of procedural or technical reasons.

States Bent on Collecting Internet Taxes – States are trying to get their residents to voluntarily report purchases made via mail order and pay the Use Taxes on them, which are the same rates as normal Sales Taxes paid in the buyers’ local jurisdictions. Here in Arkansas, I noticed the DFA has put out news releases asking people to do this; but they aren’t making it as easy to do as many other states are. Rather than add a schedule that can be attached to individuals’ annual income tax returns to report the untaxed purchases, DFA is requiring people to obtain a completely different tax form. If they are truly serious about making it easy for people to volunteer those taxes, the DFA needs to make it a routine part of the annual income tax filing, as several other states are already doing. That way, we professional tax preparers can add a question to our annual tax organizers to capture that info.

As Al Capone and other gangsters have learned over the years, murder and other violent crimes take a back seat to what is considered the most heinous offense that can be perpetrated against our society – tax evasion.

It is also an ironic fact that most of the tax scofflaws, such as some reformed tax protestors and delinquents with whom I have worked, end up owning much less in taxes when they voluntarily file their professionally prepared returns than by letting the IRS and State tax agencies do the calculations based on the one-sided information they have for non-filers. In many cases, there have even been overpayments that had to be forfeited because of the statute of limitations on claiming refunds.

IRS allows tax deduction for doctor-approved weight-loss – But not for the cost of the diet food – a common misconception I have encountered.

Remember; we are trained professionals. Do not try this at home.