Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 This is the Kassouf Podcast Network where your trusted advisors are at your fingertips, are in your earbuds. At Kassouf, we are an accounting and advisory firm with a team of specialists and a variety of industries. Everything from cybersecurity to healthcare consulting, to everything in between. I'm Tara Arrington, and I'm your host. As an ex-journalist turn marketing professional, I'm the non-expert who will be chatting with our experts, giving you all the tips and tricks you need to help your business succeed.
Speaker 1 00:00:40 Today's episode of the Kaso Podcast Network is an excerpt from our recent year end planning workshop. Today you'll hear from Joel Jones, who is a director in Kao's Business Services Group. Joel provides tax consulting and transactional advisory services to businesses and individuals in a variety of industries based in our Auburn office. Joel specializes in family owned businesses, partnership and corporate taxation, multi-state taxation, not-for-profits, and he also works in the firm's business valuation area. He frequently teaches continuing education classes for our staff and our clients, and is an instructor for the Accounting and Tax Training Institute at Auburn University. Today, Joel will discuss year end planning tips for businesses and also some non-tax related tips to help your business be prepared for year end. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 00:01:36 Talk a little bit about, uh, some of the just general business thanks to think about in times of economic uncertainty. And so from a tax decision standpoint, you know, you've got on your screen some of the things that I'm gonna touch on really, really fast. Um, you know, this is a list of things that are always good things to talk about at the end of the year, and there's a, there's a couple of what I would consider hot point things in there. I've got some information about the, uh, employee retention credit that I want to go through, because those are some things that are on people's minds right now, um, just because it's, it's kind of in the market, so to speak. And then some of the non-tax things are the things that you see on your screen as well. Um, you know, some of the cash flow things and accounts receivable and banking things.
Speaker 2 00:02:16 Um, just to consider if you're not already, you know, a lot of business owners are, are keeping these things in mind just on a daily basis, but it's always good to talk about these things, uh, because they're very timely given our current, uh, environment. So let's start with, you know, some capital expenditure considerations, because this time of year business owners are always looking at the types of things that perhaps they need to buy to deploy in their business. And sometimes that's a tax related decision, and sometimes it's just a general business related decision. And the best decisions are the ones that intersect both of those things together to where you've got something that's a really good business decision that also provides the tax benefits associated with that, because it takes the cost down some. And so, so for 2022, it's a good time to be thinking about those things because we're still in bonus depreciation, 100% bonus depreciation, but only for this year.
Speaker 2 00:03:09 So you've got until December 31st to recognize that full 100% bonus depreciation. Same condition that we've lived in, you know, since 2017, with the big exception of the bonus depreciation amount is gonna decline after 1231. And those same rules that we've been living with before, 100% bonus depreciation placed in service before one one of 2023 new and used property, property and generally recovery period of 20 years or less. We also still have 1 79. And so we're still in the same condition, at least right now that we've been in for the past couple of years, where for the most part, if you buy something that is not long live assets, uh, certain types of long live assets, you get 100% depreciation in the current year. But the biggest difference this year versus the past, you know, four or five years is the 100% depreciation sunsets in 2023, and at the end of 2022, January 1st, 2023.
Speaker 2 00:04:07 Now, it doesn't go completely away. It starts stepping down in the, uh, the way that you see on your screen going to 80, 60, 40, 20, but you're still, you know, when you're talking about even a 20% reduction, that's still a reduction of tax benefit. And so now is a good time to be thinking about those things because of the expiration of that provision. Keeping in mind the same thing. That's, and this is not new, but you know, to be eligible for depreciation, you have to get an asset placed in service in the tax year in which you're gonna take the deduction. For us, that would be 12 31 22 this year. And so, you know, the question is, given all the things occurring in the economy, all the things occurring in the, in the supply chain, is it, and it's something that you're looking to purchase, is it a, you have to think about whether or not you can get it in, in your business in place before 1231, because there may be issues in even getting whatever it is that you're looking to buy.
Speaker 2 00:05:05 If there's some sort of insulation or build out, there may be delays in getting those people to your business to get stuff set up. And so, you know, we're, like I said, we're only 50 days away from the end of the year. So if that is on your mind, I would suggest accelerating those decisions if you can, and start thinking about whether or not it's something that you want to do this year. And so, again, it's a good time to look at what you currently have, because there may be something that you've just kind of been on the fence about as to whether or not you wanna replace it or whether or not something new or better might be helpful. This may be a good time to think about that, but as I always say, when I do these presentations, I would not make your decision based solely on the tax savings just to make it easy on me. If you're in a 30% tax bracket and you spend a hundred thousand dollars, you're saving $30,000 of tax. That's a a lot of tax, and it should factor in the decision, but I don't necessarily think that it's good to buy something just to reduce your tax liability. A better way to look at that is in my mind, is, is there something that I can use in my business that would help me? Now is a good time to do it because of the enhanced tax benefits.
Speaker 2 00:06:18 Another thing to think about this time of year are your retirement plan considerations. And so it is a good time to look at your plan to make sure if you're, if you're not doing this already, to make sure that you're on pace as far as your matching contributions, um, taken into account what you think your in bonuses might be taken into account discretionary contributions, if you have anything like that that you're considering. And it's all, at the end of the day, a cash flow question, you know, is, is to try to anticipate what's gonna be needed to be funded when the time comes to fund so that you're not left with a liability that you may not have the cash to, to have and the o or to pay. And the only way to know that is to just kind of get your arms around where you stand, um, because you still have, even though we're only 50 days away or so from the end of the year, that's still a decent amount of time to start making course adjustments as you need to.
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Another thing to think about is you're in approaches, particularly, particularly if you are an accrual basis, taxpayer, is your accounts receivable. You know, are there receivables that you can write off? And this is good policy, again, to main, to, to keep a handle on these things all the time. But from a, uh, accrual basis, taxpayer, the ability to take a deduction for write-offs, you know, it has to be handled before the end of the year. So it's a good time to be thinking about those things. Again, from a tax standpoint, not applicable for a cash basis taxpayer, it's still something to be monitored and still something to keep your ha to keep your finger on. But the tax benefits, uh, differ a little bit for a cash basis Taxpayer. Similarly, inventory items are things to, to look at as your year-end approaches. Start thinking about, you know, write-offs or obsolete items and whether or not those things need to come out of your inventory before the end of the year.
Speaker 2 00:08:07 Start thinking about when you're gonna do your physical inventory so that you kind of get that on the, on the calendar, because that's a, that's a really, and truly that's a business interruption to do a inventory count. And so it's important to think about what's the best time to do that, what's the most efficient time to do that? And then not only that, from a timing standpoint, what's the most and best efficient way to handle that so that you can minimize the amount of the interruption that you experience, and then start thinking about your cutoffs to make sure that you've got your inventory cutoff at the same time that you've got your payable, so that you've got that you don't end up with a mismatch of any of those items. The other thing to think about is your, um, year end approaches is, and this is not new either, is the way you've handled account, uh, meals and entertainment in your general ledger.
Speaker 2 00:08:54 You know, as we know back then before, uh, the tax cuts and jobs act, meals, entertainment were just kinda lumped together. And over the past couple of years, we've been dealing with a situation of meals are treated differently than entertainment. Now that has not changed. So, you know, it's the same condition we've lived with for the last couple of years where no deduction is available for things that are entertainment or membership dues or a facility associated with any of those things. But meals are, and so we've had to separate in our ledgers meals from entertainment so that we can either not deduct or take a deduction and food and, uh, beverages have been 50% deductible since 2017, starting in 2018, with the exception of 21 and 22. There's been enhanced deductions for us for, uh, mul purchased at restaurants that's still in place for 2022, but that also expires in 2022.
Speaker 2 00:09:49 And those were, those were provisions designed to help restaurants get back post pandemic to encourage businesses to, um, buy more of their business related meals at restaurants. And so these rules aren't any different than what we live with in 2021, so it's gotta be a restaurant versus, um, a grocery store or a specialty food store. And so for us, as year end approaches and as we start thinking about tax payments or tax returns, uh, prepped, it's knowing that we've got those things properly separated in our ledger between a hundred percent deductible, 50% deductible and not deductible. And then once you, once you flip over to 2023, start thinking about if there's any changes you need to make with the way you're coding things, because we're going back to the 50% deductible, uh, rules, uh, that were in place prior to 21 and 22. So we've got our next code word that you see on your screen, which is the code word of tax. So I'll give you just a second to get that down in your notes.
Speaker 2 00:10:58 The next thing I want to mention, and, and this may or may not apply to most businesses, is this employer payroll tax deferral that was created with some of the CARES Act. The CARES Act was some of the pandemic related relief that came out, you know, right at the heart of the pandemic, like March, April of 20. And all of those provisions were designed to provide businesses cash or help provide businesses cash to make it through the pandemic that hopefully would allow businesses to keep employees on payroll. So you're talking about things like the payroll tax deferral and the p p loans and the employee retention credit. All of those things, uh, were designed to do that. And the payroll tax deferral is something that a lot of businesses took advantage of back then because it allowed businesses to not remit their employer related payroll taxes, which helped keep more cash in the business.
Speaker 2 00:11:51 There were two hurdles were related to that, that came due, uh, or one came due in December 31st, 2021 where 50% of your deferral was due, then the other half is due December 31st, 2022. So this is something that your business is taking advantage of. Just know that liability is coming due December 31st, 2022, because that can be a, a pretty big number, um, given what it is. The next piece that I wanna talk about, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time here, is the employee retention credit, because even though it's not necessarily a year end tax planning provision, uh, it's something that, that I've seen a lot of questions about, uh, uh, from businesses, uh, in this area because it's, it's really kind of a hot topic, uh, at least in the tax world, as hot as a topic can be in a tax world. And so I want to talk a little bit about that and, and talk about why that is and some things that businesses wanna be, want businesses want to be thinking about if they're not related to this credit.
Speaker 2 00:12:52 And so, a little bit of history is this credit was created originally, like the deferral, uh, created under the CARES Act and originally covered wages paid from January 1st of 20 to June 30th, 2021. But originally, the, the businesses had to make a choice, either look at the retention credit or get a P P P loan. Most businesses, in my experience, went the P P P loan route. And so as a result of that, a lot of businesses said, all right, I don't have to worry about the employee retention credit. I can kind of remove that from my head. Fast forward a little bit. And the taxpayers, certainly in Disaster Relief Act came out and eliminated that, uh, provision that said that if you got a P P P loan, you could not do the employee retention credit. So that made more businesses eligible. Then in, uh, 2021, the American Rescue Plan extended applicable wages to cover all of 2021, which further extended eligibility, but then in one final act, the infrastructure bill dialed back eligibility to say that only wages paid until September 30th were eligible for the credit except for what are designated as recovery startup business.
Speaker 2 00:14:09 And I'll talk about that. So what does all this mean? Why do we care? What this means is that more businesses are eligible now than originally thought. Okay? And that eligibility passes on to nonprofit organizations. And so there's just a lot more eligibility of this credit than originally thought. And so that means that a lot of businesses that did not participate in this credit before can participate now under these eligibility rules. Now, there is still a, a criteria based on the number of employees, this has not changed. So for 2020 wages, there was a distinction between employers with 100 employees and employers with more than a hundred employees. And for 2021, that distinction was raised to 500. The difference is if you're above that employee threshold, the credit applies generally to paying employees who are not at work versus be below that threshold. It was to pay employees at all during an eligible credit, uh, quarter.
Speaker 2 00:15:12 So again, more eligibility just based on that provision. So what are the general eligibility requirements? Well, the first general eligibility requirement is that you are, you were experiencing as a business, a full or partial suspension of operations due to a government order related to covid 19 during any quarter for which the credit applies. So during 20 and all the way through the third quarter of 21 for most businesses, the second criteria is, did you have a significant decline in gross receipts? Now, this one's very formulaic and very easy to follow, as easy as it can be anyway, there's no facts and circumstances with this one. It's pure math. Either you're eligible or you're not. And the, the formula is you take your 20, uh, revenues by quarter, first, second, third, fourth, then compare that corresponding quarter to the same quarter in 19. So first quarter of 20 versus first quarter of 19, and et cetera.
Speaker 2 00:16:14 If your revenues for 20 were 50% or less of what they were in 19, that means you're eligible in that quarter. And for 2020, once you became eligible, you stayed eligible until the revenues for a quarter in 20 versus revenues of a quarter in 19 had risen back up to 80%. So if you think about it is it was designed to mitigate the decline in revenue as a result of covid. So you're eligible until your revenues come back up to what they were pre pandemic, 80% of what they were pre pandemic. That was the original design of this credit. Well, then in 2021, the eligibility expanded even more. So in 2021, the threshold, uh, raised or lower, depending on how you wanna look at it, to 80%, which means if you took your 21 revenue by quarter and compared it to your 19 revenue by quarter, if your revenue was 80% or less of what it was in 19, you were eligible for 21.
Speaker 2 00:17:22 In addition, they added one more kind of mind numbing thing to me is they said, look at a quarter, see if you're eligible. If you're not eligible, you can actually look back to the previous quarter, use those numbers to determine eligibility for 21. What does that mean for us? It means that more businesses would be eligible under this provision than perhaps they thought they were previously. And so, again, just the takeaways are more eligibility for businesses based on the new rules that came out related to 2021. So that's the formulaic approach. The math approach that is as re as straightforward as tax can be relatively straightforward. It's just getting your revenues back quarter on a worksheet for 20 and 21, comparing those numbers to 19 taken into account that you can move back a quarter, if so, inclined for the 21, uh, test the di the second threshold or the other threshold, there's a little bit more information to talk about with that is, did your business have a full or partial suspension of operations?
Speaker 2 00:18:30 Now, it has to be a, a government order related to either a full or partial suspension. And the reason I say a government order is that is different than, um, advisory type stuff. So something that, something that comes from a government entity that says you cannot operate due to covid 19, that would qualify versus something from another organization that says, we think you need to be, you need to do these things. And it may be social distancing or it may be something else. Those are advisory. And so it has to be a full or partial suspension of operations as a direct result of a government order. And it has to be mandatory. Just purely recommendations are not enough. So full suspensions as a result of an order are fairly straightforward. You know, if, if you were under a government order that said that you could not open your business, that's a known thing.
Speaker 2 00:19:23 There is, that is not something that's really questionable because you know, you were shut down. The challenge is this partial suspension because the criteria is either a full or partial suspension of operations. So a partial suspension is defined as what you see on your screen, something more than a nominal effect. So in order that impacts a business more than nominally as a result of, of a government order related to covid. And then not only more than nominal is defined as a 10% or more impact. And there's two criteria that you see on your screen. One is a 10% of gross receipts test and one is a 10% of hours of service test. Did that order impact a portion of your business that makes up more than 10% of your gross receipts or makes up more than 10% of the labor that you use to, to do that line of business.
Speaker 2 00:20:19 So for an order that results in more than a 10% reduction in your ability to provide goods and services in normal course of business would make that business qualifier. And then the last piece that a lot of businesses have looked at is the supply chain component is, did I have a supply chain shutdown or a, an issue with my supply chain? Now there's an important distinction here, because every business had supply chain issues during, uh, during covid. Most businesses are still experiencing supply chain issues, but to be eligible for the credit, you have to link that supply chain issued to a government order related to a supplier. That's the the logical link that you have to make. But if you can make that link and it, and it more than nominally impacted your business, you may be eligible for the credit, but you have to be able to demonstrate that whatever that supply was that you were trying to get, that you couldn't, uh, that you could not, uh, obtain that from some other source.
Speaker 2 00:21:17 So it's not just as simple as I couldn't get it from my normal guy, it was that I couldn't get it at all. So how is the credit calculated? And this is another reason why a lot of businesses are looking at this is for 20, it was 50 per 50% of qualified wages up to a maximum of $10,000 per employee for the year. So what does that mean? It means the maximum for 20 for a business is $5,000 per employee. But for 21, the credit, uh, percentage was raised and then the compensation maximum was raised. So for 21, it's $10,000 per employee per quarter, and then up to 70% of that. So that means that for some employers, and I'll talk about who these are, it could be $28,000 a year for 2021 per employee. For most employers it's probably gonna be 21,000 maximum, cuz you can only count three quarters.
Speaker 2 00:22:13 You do have to not, you do have to eliminate wages from this, uh, calculation that were used for your P p p forgiveness calculation. So you can't double dip the, uh, government, um, benefits out of these programs. And then there are some things that you have to do with related party bus, uh, related party wages. And then the last piece to talk about here is there is something called a recovery startup business that for a business that started after February 15th, 2020 that meets certain size criteria, there's just more eligibility for those types of businesses. How do you take the credit? Um, you claim it on amended payroll tax returns, and then you also have to amend business returns because to the extent you took the credit, you cannot take a deduction for those wages paid. So it's a process. So you could end up with amended partnership returns, escorp returns that would result in amended personal returns.
Speaker 2 00:23:05 Again, not a reason not to do it, just something to consider as part of this process is those are the steps that you have to go through. So that was a lot of information. What the heck does all that mean? It means that at the end of the day, there are a lot more businesses eligible for this credit than perhaps originally thought because of the expansion. And then not only that, based on the facts and circumstances component, it may be, uh, there may be some businesses that can claim the credit even though they did not have the quarter over quarter revenue decline. And so at the end of the day, in my mind, if, if a business owner, if you haven't looked at it, it's worth looking at, but take into account that it does take time and there can be cash flow things to consider because of the delays in which it in, in which the IRS is working on.
Speaker 2 00:23:51 Um, with some of these, uh, with all things right now, I'll talk real briefly about, um, 1 99 8 deductions is, you know, this is still around. And so some things to consider, you know, 1 99 a deductions are applicable to pass through entities. So s-corp partnerships, um, you know, 20% of the income from that activity versus your taxable income of the partner. And so there's some things that you can do to try to maximize, um, those provisions related to, um, reducing the business owner's, uh, personal income because all of those things factor together related to their 1 99 a deduction. And so, you know, at the end of the day, what's the takeaway, uh, for 1 99 A is know that it's still there, know that there are some things that can be done to maximize that deduction and know that they need to be done prior to the end of the year, which is why I added it into this presentation because now's the time to think about these things.
Speaker 2 00:24:47 And then lastly, from a tax standpoint, what's, what are some tax things to think about? Some, uh, tax estimate payments to think about is just make sure that you're on time with your tax estimates. And this may be the entity tax. If it's a C corporation, this may be the individual taxes for the s c partnership partner. Um, just, you know, now is a good time to just make sure that those things are done. Make sure that those things are on time, they'll try to minimize some of the penalty stuff that could apply. So what are some non-tax things to think about? You know, in my mind, as the economy slows and it does appear that it's going to be slowing a little bit, is some things to think about as business owners is you could have slower paying customers, you could have, uh, demand declines, you know, depending on what type of business you're in.
Speaker 2 00:25:33 Keep in mind that with rising interest rates, your cost of capital is gonna go up, so your debt, uh, rates are going to rise, uh, unless you've got some sort of fixed interest rate. But also keep in mind that savings and money market yields are going to rise as well. So, you know, there's some things that you can think about to try to keep these things in mind. And one of these is, if you're not doing this, look at, you know, modeling at your cash flow. What is your expectation of what your Ford cash flow is gonna look like so that you can make operational changes as you need to? Because as customers start slow pay. If customers starts low-paying, then that's gonna constrict your cash, which also restricts your ability to make payments and may lead to some debt, uh, picking up some debt as well.
Speaker 2 00:26:16 And so having an idea of what those numbers look like are essential, in my opinion, to try to manage this uncertainty that we're gonna be living with. It would appear and then know what your overhead is, is I'm a real big fan of knowing what a month of my overhead is so that I know how to manage my cash. I know at a minimum I have to have X dollars to do what I need to do in my business, um, you know, to pay my staff and pay my insurance and pay my rent and all of those things. And if I know what that number is, not only do I know how to hit it, but I also know the amount of cash that I can place in something that's yielding a high rate, like a money marketing account or like a savings account. I also think it's very important to stay on top of your account receivable.
Speaker 2 00:27:02 I talked a little bit about this earlier, but as the economy kind of cools down a little bit, it's very important to stay in contact with your customers to make sure that you know what their, um, economic reality is. You know, if you're talking to customers and they start talking about, you know, how their business is slowing down, then you start wondering whether or not they're, you're gonna get paid. You know, stay on top of your aging to know if you've got large balances to know that you're, if you've got something, a large balance in jeopardy, if something happens to your customer, you're not left with something that's unpaid. And then to the best you, the, the, to the extent that you can try to minimize your concentration with your customer so that you don't have one big customer that you're dependent on in the event something happens to that customer during this economic time. Another code word that you see on your screen is economy. So take a minute and get that into your notes.
Speaker 2 00:28:01 The other thing to think about is your inventory management to the extent that you have inventory is, that's a good way to think about your cost of capital because it may make sense. And again, every business is different. It may make sense to start contracting your inventory to try to cut down on your cost to capital if the economy continues to cool down. Because if you've got less capital, less inventory, you may have less on your line as interest rates go up. You can bring your line down a little bit to try to manage some of these costs. Um, and then that can also provide cash to do other things. Um, if you can, again, it's, it's a, it's a situation by situation, um, analysis. On the other side, it may make sense to look at buying opportunities. It may be that as suppliers are starting to drop prices, as inflation kind of slows and as, uh, demand slows, perhaps it makes sense to start accumulating inventory so that you're ready when things start kind of loosening back up a little bit.
Speaker 2 00:28:55 So just some strategy things to think about. And then the last piece for me is banking relationships is, you know, bankers are extremely helpful for all businesses and they're really helpful during economic, uh, downturns to kind of get a feel for what the economy is doing. And so it's important that you stay really, really close to your banker as a business person during this time so that you've got a good feel for what interest rates are going to do and have a good concept of what your loan covenants are gonna be. Because a lot of times as um, economic pressures impact businesses, working capital shrinks, a lot of loan covenants are based on working capital or debt coverage or cash flow. And so those things can start impacting loans and it's good to have those conversations with your bankers ahead of time so that they know what's coming. They can do what they need to do to get waivers and they're not surprised if you don't make your covenant. But then on the other side of it, it's good to have conversations with your banker about some of the other things that you can do with your money, like high yield savings and CDs and bond accounts and things like that. Because as interest rates rise, those things become more attractive.
Speaker 1 00:33:40 Thank you for tuning in to the kaso podcast Network. Resources for today's episode are linked in the episode notes. Thank you to our producer Russ Dorsey and for Kassouf for powering this podcast. Be sure to stay up to date on new episodes and more information about today's episode by following at kaco. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.
