The Best Android Finance and Accounting Mobile Apps

GetApp for Yahoo News wites: Busy professionals shouldn’t have to wait until they’re sitting in front of a computer to check their company account balances, manage cash flow, and invoice clients. A slew of new Android finance and accounting mobile apps are changing the way people do business, making it easier to handle everyday accounting tasks when they’re on the road or working from home. These mobile apps help with everything from sending invoices and accepting payments, to logging expenses, tracking receipts, and even planning budgets.

With hundreds of mobile finance and accounting apps to choose from, it can be challenging for business owners to know which platform is best suited to their needs. While most mobile finance and accounting apps for Android offer basic features, like invoicing and expense tracking, business owners may need to dig deeper to find applications with more advanced features, like bill reminders, mobile wallets, bank transfers, and productivity tools.

We’ve combed through the most popular Android apps for finance and accounting and come up with a list of our favorites. Each of our reviews includes a brief description of the app, along with pricing information and device compatibility details.

Xero for Android

Xero customers – run your business from your Android device. Track your finances and easily manage your cashflow: check bank balances, invoice customers, upload receipts, submit expense claims – all while you’re on the go.
Price: Free

Expensify for Android

Consistently rated as the #1 app for business travelers and road warriors, Expensify does expense reports that don’t suck. Please note that Expensify is currently not optimized for tablets. Use Expensify on your Android device to log expenses, capture receipt images and manage reports on the go! Even better, SmartScan will read your receipt images, fill out the expense details, and create a new expense (or attach to an automatically imported bank/card transaction). Organize expenses with custom categories, tags, comments, and consolidate everything into reports. Track mileage expenses via GPS or odometer entry, and add time or other billable expenses. Sync your credit cards/bank accounts with Expensify to track expenses as they happen, without filling out information manually. Expensify will create IRS Guaranteed eReceipts for most of bank/card purchases under $75.
Price: Free

Zoho Invoice and Time Tracker for Android

Email or print invoices on the go and get paid faster! Zoho Invoice, your pocket friendly app is the best way to invoice, remind and accept payments from your clients. You can send quotes, track time for projects, monitor expenses, invoice for projects, accept credit card payments and send thank you letters to clients.
Price: Free

Yendo Accounting for Android

Financial Accounting for small business. Exceptional, easy-to-use accounting app with everything you need including invoicing, expenses and payments. This software is a full-featured accounting app, not just invoicing. It can be used to manage all the financial aspects of your business. Yendo is trusted by over 30,000 businesses worldwide to manage their accounts.
Price: Free

Receipt Catcher for Android

Do you work for a company? Do you log expenses? Maybe you are sick of having that pile of personal receipts at home, and want something to organize them and make them easy to track? Whether you log expenses at your work place, or would just like to keep track of your personal expenses Receipt Catcher is for you. It takes the pain out of the expenses process. It is a very simple yet effective app.
Price: $1.07

Mint.com Personal Finance for Android

The best free way to manage your money. Mint pulls in all your personal finance accounts into one place, so you can manage your money from anywhere. Track your spending, create a budget, and save more. Manage your money anywhere, see all your personal finance accounts (checking, savings, and credit cards), automatically categorize transactions, track your cash spending, view finances offline, and get email or text alerts that notify you of upcoming bills, fees, low balances, unusual activity. The app stores information from your latest download (tablet only).
Price: Free

PayPal for Android

Enjoy PayPal on-the-go with the PayPal Android app. Send and request money. Whether you want to send a money gift or pay off a loan from a friend—sending money is easy and free (when using Bank or Balance as a funding source). Check your balance, withdraw funds, or view past transactions—anytime, anywhere. Additional features allow you to snap a photo of a check to add money to your PayPal account for free. Online or on-the-go, your financial information is always safe and secure with PayPal.
Price: Free

Check for Android

Check (formerly Pageonce) is an award-winning app that stays on top of your bills & money for you, so you never miss a bill or get hit with overdraft & late fees again. Just set it up once and the app goes to work – proactively staying on top of your bills and monitoring your bank accounts and credit cards, all in one place. When bills are due or funds are low, the app will let you know so you’re never caught off guard.
Price: Free

EasyMoney for Android

EasyMoney is the #1 money manager app that combines an expense manager, a bill reminder, a checkbook register and a budget planner! EasyMoney expense manager provides a rich, detailed window into your personal finances and daily money management needs. Track and manage daily expenses quickly & easily! Business expenses, personal expenses, travel expenses, etc. can all be managed rapidly using EasyMoney expense manager’s simple and intuitive user interface. Interactive reports & graphs let you analyze income, expenses, cash flow and balance over various date ranges and accounts.
Price: Free

Expense Manager for Android

Expense manager is great application for managing your expenses and incomes, tracking expenses and incomes by week, month and year as well as by categories. Add multiple accounts in multiple currencies, schedule the payments and recurring payments, take a picture of receipts, budget by day, week, month and year, and export account activities in CSV for desktop software. Expense Manager offers Dropbox and SD Card backup.
Price: Free

Concur for Android

Keep track of your expenses and stay productive on the go. Large and small businesses can easily track business travel and manage expense reports anytime – from anywhere – with Concur. This app is a companion to Concur’s solutions for existing users. Extend the benefits of Concur’s business travel and expense reporting solution to your Android while you’re on the go! Simply download now and create your mobile PIN to enjoy all the functionality associated with the Concur solution you already use. With Concur’s mobile app, say goodbye to shuffling paper receipts. No more struggling to remember how much you paid in cab fare. Now, all of your receipts and expense charges are gathered and ready for an expense report when you get home.
Price: Free

Google Wallet for Android

Google Wallet holds your credit and debit cards, offers, and rewards cards. With this latest release, you can use any card from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover in conjunction with the app. To pay in-store, select the card you want to use, and then just tap your phone to any contactless point of sale terminal. Payment information is transmitted via near field communication (NFC). Shortly after you’ll see a transaction record with merchant name and dollar amount on your phone. Google Wallet keeps you safe and secure. The app has its own PIN, and if you lose your phone, you can remotely disable your mobile wallet from wallet.google.com/manage.
Price: Free

Financisto for Android

Financisto is an open-source personal finance manager. Manage multiple accounts, multiple currencies, transfers with downloadable rates, scheduled & recurring transactions, split transactions, recurring budgets, project, payees and locations, filtering and reporting, and cloud backup (Dropbox, Google Docs). Financisto offers automatic daily backups.
Price: Free

AndroMoney Expense Track Money for Android

One of best tools for keeping accounts, efficiently tracking each expense report. AndroMoney is a personal finance tool for use on your mobile phone. By using this tool, we hope you can better manage your wealth. We focus on ease of use (keep it intuitive to operate) and power (daily accounting, managing categories, or even drawing detail reports).
Price: Free

ETRADE Mobile for Android

With E*TRADE Mobile for Android1, you can get real-time streaming quotes, place trades, manage your accounts, and more—all from your Android-powered device. Get everything you want in a trading and investing tool, right in the palm of your hand.
Price: Free

Expense Control for Android

Do you want to control your month expenses? Expense Control it´s a help application to manage your expenses and incomes from a salary. In this way we will have more real control over where and how much money we spend our salary. If you want to control your expenses from your salary, Expense Control is the application you were looking for.
Price: Free

Saving for retirement vs. paying down debt / Paying down debt is important, but opportunities to save in tax-advantaged retirement plans are typically more important.

Liz Weston for the LA Times writes: Dear Liz: I am a 67-year-old college instructor who plans to teach full time for at least eight more years. Last year I began collecting spousal benefits based on my ex-husband's Social Security earnings record. Those benefits give me an extra $1,250 each month above my regular income. I have been using the money to pay down a home equity line of credit that I have on my condo. The credit line now has a balance of $29,000. I have about $200,000 in mutual funds and should have a small pension when I retire. (I went into teaching only a few years ago.) Would it be better for me to split the extra monthly $1,250 into investments as well as paying off my line of credit? The idea of having no loan on my condo appeals to me, but I wonder if I should try to invest in stocks and bonds instead.

Answer: Paying down debt is important, but opportunities to save in tax-advantaged retirement plans are typically more important. Fortunately, you probably have enough money to do both.

First investigate whether your college offers a 403(b) or other retirement program that offers a match. If it does, you should be contributing at least enough to that plan to get the full match.

Your next step is to explore an IRA. Since you're covered by at least one retirement plan at work (your pension), you would be able to deduct a full IRA contribution only if your modified adjusted gross income as a single taxpayer is $59,000 or less in 2013. The ability to deduct a contribution phases out completely at $69,000.

If you can't deduct your contribution, consider putting the money into a Roth IRA instead. Roth contributions aren't deductible, but withdrawals in retirement are tax free. Having a bucket of tax-free money to draw upon in retirement can help you better manage your tax bill, which is why some investors opt to contribute to Roths even when they could get a deduction elsewhere.

People 50 and older can contribute up to $6,500 this year directly to a Roth if their income is under certain limits. (For singles, the limit for a full contribution is a modified adjusted gross income of $112,000 or less.) If your income is over the limit, you can contribute to a traditional IRA and then immediately convert the money into a Roth IRA, since there's no income limit on conversions. (This is known as a "back door" Roth contribution.)

Since you're so close to retirement, you don't want to overdose on stocks, but you still need a significant amount of stock market exposure so that your money has a chance to offset future inflation. You might consider a balanced fund that invests 60% in stocks, 40% in bonds.

Once you've taken advantage of your retirement savings options, you can direct the rest of your Social Security benefit to paying off your home equity line. These credit lines typically have low but variable rates. Higher interest rates are likely in our future, so paying this line down over time is a prudent move.

Get With The Plan: Early retirement a hope for 30-something couple

Karin Price Mueller/The Star-Ledger  writes:   The Situation: Elena, 36, and Jared, 39, have very disciplined savings habits, but they’re less confident about their investing choices. The couple want to retire when Jared is 60 — to a warmer and less stressful state than New Jersey — so they want to make sure they are putting their money in the right places.

The Way Out: The Morris County, NJ  couple should make some changes to their investments to maximize their long-term strategy to build wealth. They should also fund their Roth IRAs, and use Jared’s Health Savings Account as a long-term tax-advantaged place to stash money. A visit with an estate planning attorney should also be on their to-do list.

Elena, 36, and Jared, 39, have concerns about their investments. They hope to retire when Jared is 60, so they want to make sure their retirement accounts are invested wisely for the long term.

"A main concern now is how to invest and use our savings well, given that current savings rates are so low," Elena said. "We have an income surplus each month and are wondering if we should just keep adding to our balanced fund, or if it would make more sense to invest it in other ways."

The couple doesn’t plan to have children, and they would eventually like to "live simply in a warmer, less stressful climate than New Jersey."

Elena and Jared, whose names have been changed, have saved $466,000 in 401(k) plans, $92,600 in IRAs, $84,000 in a cash balance pension, $1,295 in a brokerage account, $52,000 in a mutual fund, $15,000 in certificates of deposit, $1,300 in a money market, $25,500 in savings and $11,600 in checking.

The Star-Ledger asked Matthew Mozer, a certified financial planner with RegentAtlantic Capital in Morristown, to help the couple make smart decisions to last them through their senior years.

"Jared and Elena have a significant amount of cash savings," Mozer said. "A strong emergency fund would require only six months’ worth of expenses, or $25,000 for them. I would recommend investing a portion of the cash savings as they have no debt besides their mortgage and have two reliable sources of income."

The couple’s largest investment is Jared’s 401(k) plan. Mozer said Jared is doing a good job in terms of diversification by investing in multiple asset classes and allocating the majority of his account to equity investments. Given his age, Jared has a long investment horizon before withdrawals so he can benefit from the higher expected return of equity investments.

Still, Mozer has some changes to recommend.

First, Jared’s intermediate-term bond fund.

"I would recommend he exchange this allocation to the short-term bond fund because of the inverse relationship between interest rates and bond prices," Mozer said.

For example, as interest rates rise, bond prices will fall. Furthermore, Mozer said, longer-term bonds with longer maturities are more sensitive to interest rate changes than short-term bonds. If interest rates rise, his intermediate-term bond fund will be more volatile than a short-term bond fund and experience more price depreciation, Mozer said.

A few of Jared’s funds are in equity growth that invest primarily in growth companies versus value companies. Mozer said growth companies are typically more expensive than value companies when comparing a company’s stock price to some fundamental measure of its worth. Common valuation metrics include price-to-earnings, price-to-book or price-to-sales ratios.

"These valuation metrics help compare how expensive one company’s stock is relative to another or an index," he said. "A value company will tend to have lower valuation ratios and be less expensive."

Mozer said research shows that over a long-term period, value companies have outperformed growth companies — something Jared should take advantage of.
Finally, Mozer recommends larger exposure to emerging markets.

"Emerging market investments have a higher expected return and higher volatility than investments in developed market funds," Mozer said. "Jared can afford to experience this higher volatility due to his longer investment time horizon and eventual need for the assets."

Looking at their Roth IRAs, both hold intermediate-bond funds, but Mozer suggested they get rid of all fixed income in these accounts.

"I would prefer to invest these accounts in equity investments that provide the greatest expected return over the long term," he said. "This is because these assets have already paid taxes and none of their future growth will be subject to tax. These accounts could benefit from increased growth exposure."

For their after-tax savings, the couple uses a balanced fund. Mozer thinks it’s a good strategy, but not the right fund.

"The equity investments only have allocations to U.S. large- and small-cap companies," he said. "By adding more asset classes with lower correlations to each other — such as international large and small cap companies, emerging markets companies, infrastructure investments, etc. — they could help lower fund volatility and increase expected return."

Mozer suggests they both make the maximum contributions to their Roth IRAs each year.

As long as their adjusted gross income is below $188,000 (for a married couple filing jointly), they have the ability to make contributions to a Roth IRA. If their AGI surpasses this level, then they will no longer be eligible to make these contributions. The maximum contribution for individuals under age 50 in 2013 is $5,500.

Jared participates in his employer’s high deductible health plan that includes a Health Savings Account, which allows pre-tax contributions and tax-free withdrawals for medical expenses. Mozer recommends Jared max it out with $3,250 a year — but not use the money.

Instead, he suggests Jared pay medical expenses with his after-tax assets.

"This strategy would allow his contributions to accumulate in the HSA and let him withdraw those funds in retirement — including any earnings and appreciation — tax-free for medical expenses such as Medicare premiums," he said. "If he keeps track of the medical expenses he pays out of pocket, in retirement, he can make a tax-free withdrawal from the HSA for unreimbursed qualified medical expenses that he incurred in the past."

So the HSA can provide him with a tax-free distribution, and an additional asset in retirement.

Mozer said the couple is charitably motivated, having given more than $6,000 in cash donations over the past two years. Instead of donating cash, they could benefit more from a tax perspective by gifting highly appreciated securities to the charities, Mozer said.

"Similar to gifting cash, they would receive a tax deduction equal to the fair market value of the security on the day it was donated. This strategy allows them to avoid paying capital gains tax while still benefiting from the tax deduction," he said. "The end charity would receive the security and sell it, and due to their nonprofit tax status would avoid paying any taxes on the gains."

The couple doesn’t have any estate-planning documents, but they need wills, powers of attorney, health care proxies and living wills. They should also check their beneficiary designations on their retirement plans because those assets don’t pass through a will.

New Approach to a 401(k) Tax Tactic / For clients who have large holdings of their employers' stock in 401(k) plans, an attractive option for advisors has been to use the special tax break for net unrealized appreciation. Now, however, that option is no longer as clear-cut.

Ed Slott for Financial-Planning.com writes: The break for net unrealized appreciation on lump-sum distributions from a qualified plan has allowed clients to trade ordinary income tax rates for long-term capital gains rates on a portion of their retirement savings, if they qualify under the lump-sum distribution provisions and have a triggering event: turning 591/2 years old, disability (only for the self-employed), separation from service (not for the self-employed) and death.

But the big tax package signed into law at the beginning of the year made changes to both ordinary income tax and long-term capital gains rates. In addition, a new 3.8% health care surtax on net investment income took effect at the start of 2013. Because this strategy is pegged to the disparity between tax rates for long-term capital gains and ordinary income, advisors must reevaluate the benefits of these transactions.

To use the net unrealized appreciation tax break, clients must have the appreciated securities (usually stock) of their employer inside a qualified plan. After the triggering event, the client must take a lump-sum distribution, emptying all like plans in one calendar year and moving the securities to a taxable account. If done properly, ordinary income tax is owed in the year of the transaction on the original cost of the shares, and then long-term capital gains are owed on the remaining appreciation when those shares are sold later on.

The appreciation is taxed at long-term capital gains rates regardless of when the stock is sold. This is true even if the client dies and a beneficiary does the selling; the net unrealized appreciation does not receive a step-up in basis at death.

LESS BENEFICIAL

For clients in the highest bracket, this strategy is now slightly less beneficial than it has been for the past several years, but it will in many cases still prove to be useful. In 2012, if clients in the highest ordinary income bracket had taken advantage of net unrealized appreciation, they would have effectively traded ordinary income tax of 35% to get long-term capital gains tax of 15% on a portion of their retirement funds. The difference amounted to a significant tax saving.

Due to the tax changes, those same clients may now permanently face an ordinary rate of 39.6% - 4.6 percentage points higher than last year. This top rate affects clients who are married and file a joint return with taxable income exceeding $450,000. Single filers will pay the new rate on taxable income of more than $400,000.

Taken on its own, this higher ordinary tax rate would now seem to make net unrealized appreciation more attractive. But there are other details to consider: The tax deal also made changes to long-term capital gains rates; there is now a "permanent" top long-term capital gains rate of 20%. That means the difference between the top ordinary income tax rate of 39.6% and the top long-term capital gains rate of 20% is 19.6 percentage points.

Advisors should also consider the new 3.8% surtax on net investment income created in the 2010 federal health care overhaul. This additional tax is imposed on the lesser of a client's total net investment income or his modified adjusted gross income exceeding the applicable threshold ($250,000 for married couples filing a joint return, and $200,000 for single filers).

IMPACT ON APPRECIATION

Since net investment income includes most capital gains income, the 3.8% surtax could affect clients selling shares of appreciated stock in their taxable account after completing a net unrealized appreciation transaction. As a result, the maximum total federal tax rate on long-term capital gains, which was 15% in 2012, could now be as high as 23.8% (20% long-term capital gains rate + 3.8% health care surtax). That's a rise of 8.8 percentage points. Put differently, the long-term capital gains rate for some clients will rise more than 50% this year from previous years. Some clients still in the 15% long-term capital gains bracket may be hit with the 3.8% surtax, making their effective rate 18.8%.

It's worth noting that although 401(k) and other retirement account distributions are not considered investment income and are not subject to the 3.8% surtax, net unrealized appreciation is taxed as long-term capital gains when sold in a client's taxable account - and those capital gains will be subject to the 3.8% surtax. That means a net unrealized appreciation transaction effectively turn surtax-exempt assets into assets that could be impacted by the tax. As a result, the potential tax saving is reduced to 15.8 percentage points (39.6% top ordinary rate - 23.8% top capital gains rate, including surtax = 15.8). It's nothing to ignore, but it's still not as good as 20 points.

2 KEY QUESTIONS

There are other issues to consider. Once the stock is moved to a taxable account, it loses the tax-deferred status it has within an IRA or 401(k). Until the stock is sold, a client still has tax deferral (since capital gains are not taxed until sold). But once the stock is sold, any gains will be subject to the capital gains rates in effect at the time. In addition, the stretch IRA is lost on the net unrealized appreciation stock.

You can help clients decide whether net unrealized appreciation is right for them based on two key questions:

* Has there been significant appreciation in the value of the company stock in their plan? Obviously, the greater the appreciation, the more this strategy makes sense. Remember, the long-term capital gains rate applies only to the appreciation, while the cost of the stock when purchased in the plan is taxed at ordinary rates. If the cost of the shares is high in relation to the amount of appreciation, the loss of the tax deferral may not be worth the trade-off.

* When does a client intend to use the proceeds? The sooner the client plans to use the money, the more this strategy makes sense. In fact, if the client intends to use the money relatively soon, it might make sense even when there has been very little appreciation. On the other hand, if the client does not intend to use the money for a long time, the net unrealized appreciation strategy may be less beneficial.

Here's an example: Your client has been working for Company X for 10 years and has accumulated $100,000 of company stock in her 401(k) plan. The cost of the shares when purchased totals $90,000. Your client recently left the company and is evaluating her tax planning options. Generally, net unrealized appreciation would not be an appropriate strategy because your client would owe ordinary income tax on the $90,000 and get a tax break only on the $10,000 appreciation - and be giving up the tax-deferred cocoon her retirement account provides.

If, however, she told you she was planning to use her entire 401(k) balance to buy a vacation home, net unrealized appreciation would make sense. After all, if she's going to pay tax on everything right away, she might as well enjoy the lower long-term capital gains rate on at least some of the money.

The basic rules come down to this: The greater the appreciation on the employer's securities within a client's qualified plan, and the sooner the client may need the money, the more the strategy makes sense. But if the appreciation of the securities has been relatively modest or if the client does not intend on using the money for a long time, you may need another approach.

Tax Planning For 2013: Keeping The American Taxpayer Relief Act In Mind

Francis J. O'Shea for Berry Dunn writes: The budget negotiations in Congress defined the first quarter of 2013, leaving many businesses in a wait-and-see mode for many months. With spring about to end, many businesses would like to come out of "planning" hibernation and look ahead to future years. Given where the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) stands now, what should you be thinking about?

As you seek to gain control of the opportunities presented by the new tax laws, we've got a few planning ideas for you to consider in 2013 and beyond, including installment sales and a heads-up about possible exposure for taxpayers with foreign assets.

Note the capital gains changes

Under ATRA, the top rate for capital gains increases from 15% to 20% for taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $400,000 for single filers and $450,000 for those filing a joint return.

Understand the new 3.8% Medicare funding surtax

As part of the funding for the Affordable Care Act, effective in 2013, an additional 3.8% surtax will apply to individuals on their "net investment income." This generally includes interest, dividends, and capital gains. It also includes business profits and gains from the sale of business assets if the business is a passive activity with respect to the individual owner. The tax applies when an individual's income exceeds certain minimum threshold amounts ($200,000 for single individuals and $250,000 for married couples). It is applied to the lesser of the amount of net investment income or the amount by which total income exceeds the minimum thresholds.

Structure installment sales

Planning for installment sales in 2013 or later is a little trickier than it used to be. It isn't just about tax deferral anymore—good planning will often reduce the total tax paid. In many situations you will still want to structure sales to spread proceeds over a longer period of time in order to stay under the surtax threshold limits. But suppose your income is normally high enough that some or all of your net investment income is almost always subject to the surtax. In that case, a year in which your other income is much lower than usual or you have big losses might be a good year to elect out of installment treatment on a sale that year. Good planning will be necessary to minimize your taxes.

High-income earners who have income other than wages: Monitor your income

If you used a "prior-year safe harbor" to calculate your 2013 estimated tax payments, the surtax may result in a big bill in April 2014. If you are relying instead on the alternative rule and paying only 90% of the current-year estimated tax, the surtax increases the need to monitor your income throughout the year in order to avoid underpayment penalties.

Pay attention to the changes to the qualified charitable distribution (QCD)

A QCD is an otherwise taxable distribution from an IRA, available for individuals age 70½ and over, that is paid directly from an IRA to a qualified charity. It can be used to satisfy an RMD for the year, and an IRA owner can exclude from gross income up to $100,000 of a QCD made for a year.

A QCD could keep a taxpayer who would otherwise be subject to a higher tax rate in a lower bracket. In addition, for taxpayers with adjusted gross income of $300,000 or higher, your itemized deductions, including charitable contributions, will be limited (i.e., reduced by formula). In that case, a QCD will get you a bigger deduction than a normal gift to charity. Also, a QCD is not reported as income, which could keep you below the surtax income thresholds.

Gifting appreciated securities to qualified charities may be better than ever

A gift of appreciated securities or other property has long been a great way to get a full fair market value deduction while permanently avoiding the tax on the gain. If you are flirting with the surtax, this strategy could be better than ever.

Plan your purchases to take advantage of new dates and higher caps

Bonus first-year depreciation has been extended for one year. The new law extends the 50% first-year bonus depreciation allowable for qualified property placed in service before Jan. 1, 2014. In addition, the rules treating qualified leasehold improvement property, qualified restaurant property, and qualified retail improvement property as 15-year property have also been extended through 2013.

The law permits a so-called "Section 179 expense" in the year of purchase of certain property that would normally have to be capitalized and depreciated. The maximum Section 179 amount has been increased for 2012 and 2013 to $500,000. The cap on eligible purchases has been increased to $2,000,000. An extension has also been granted to allow up to $250,000 of qualified leasehold improvement property, qualified restaurant property, and qualified retail improvement property to be eligible for expensing under code Section 179.

The allowable increase in first-year deprecation for autos and trucks of $8,000 has been extended through 2013.

Expand hiring, R&D, and education assistance

Now might be a good time to grow your business by hiring new workers or investing in research and development:

• The Work Opportunity Tax Credit has been extended through 2013.
• The Research Credit has been reinstated for 2012 and has been extended so that it applies for amounts paid or accrued before Jan. 1, 2014.
• ATRA permanently extends the exclusion from income and employment taxes of employer-provided education assistance up to $5,250.

Do an FBAR "check-up"

It pays to make sure you're doing your Foreign Bank Account Reporting (FBAR). Penalties are high if you don't comply, even unknowingly.

A "foreign financial account" is defined as an account such as a savings, demand, checking, deposit, securities, or brokerage account that is located outside the US.

• Form TDF 90-22.1
  If you (as a US resident) have a financial interest or signature authority over foreign financial accounts and if the aggregate value exceeds $10,000 at any time during the year, you need to file Form TDF 90-22.1 by June 28 with the Department of the Treasury. Civil penalties can be up to $10,000 per violation, and the penalty for willful failure to report could be the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the account balance.
• Form 8938
  Currently only individuals need to file Form 8938 if ownership of specified foreign financial assets exceeds the applicable threshold amount of $100,000 at end of year. If you are married filing joint, the threshold is $150,000 at any point during the year. These are generally assets held for investment or any interest in a foreign entity. To file, attach the form to your annual income tax return filed with IRS. Penalties for failure to file can be up to $60,000. You are not required to file if income tax filing is not required.
• For more on this subject
  See the more comprehensive article and chart on foreign financial activity reporting requirements.

There are numerous additional provisions in the tax law for 2013 and beyond for both businesses and individuals. Remember to include tax planning in your annual review of your overall financial planning and investment strategies.

Morningstar Investment Conference & The Concept of Adding "Gamma" Value (Tax Efficient Investing)

Janet Levaux for Advisor One writes: Possibly the most valuable content at the Morningstar Investment Conference, held June 12-14 in Chicago, is a rather technical session on the subject of “gamma” whose applications have immediate take-home value for financial advisors.

Morningstar’s David Blanchett delivered the talk. He, along with his Morningstar colleague Paul Kaplan, is the mastermind of gamma, a nifty Greek letter that comes after alpha and beta in the Greek alphabet but, as it does alphabetically, goes beyond those two in terms of adding value.

While alpha investors are looking to add that 100 basis points in total return and beta investors are seeking to match the market while minimizing risk, Blanchett and Kaplan estimate that gamma enables advisors to enhance the welfare of their clients to the tune of 29% more income, which equates to 1.82% in added alpha.

Better still, alpha is a zero-sum game—your win as a buyer is another investor’s loss as a seller. With gamma, however, every advisor and every client can win.

In practical terms, financial advisors often face a skeptical public that questions whether they are worth the fees they charge. If clients perceive that the key value the advisor adds is fund selection, many will cut out the middleman and buy the funds themselves, using consumer ratings.

What Blanchett and Kaplan have attempted to do is quantify all the ways an advisor adds value. Blanchett divided an advisor’s value into five key areas: total wealth allocation; dynamic withdrawal strategy; annuity allocation; tax-efficient asset location; and retirement portfolio construction.

Tax-efficient asset location may provide the simplest example of a service advisors provide that increases client wealth. Do-it-yourself investors may make excellent investment selections, theoretically, but limit the benefits of those investments by leaving “tax ­alpha” on the table.

A classic example is bonds. Because their realized income is taxed at ordinary income rates, they are highly inefficient from a tax standpoint. Stocks, on the other hand, are far more tax-efficient, incurring a 15% capital gains rate.

So an advisor, because he understands the client may be paying a 35% tax on an investment whose historical average has been just 5% (and is possibly in secular decline), will recommend the client keep the bonds he needs in a nontaxed traditional IRA or 401(k), for example. Blanchett says a good advisor will first determine the appropriate allocation for the client’s unique circumstances, and only then determine where to locate the assets across accounts.

Another illustration of advisors adding gamma is in the area of retirement income, where their ability to frame the decisions and tailor them for clients with different outlooks is key.

It is common for people to see portfolio withdrawal strategies as sexy and annuities as somehow grotesque, Blanchett says. Yet Social Security is an annuity that is rather well-regarded by the public; with its security and inflation adjustment, it is extremely valuable.

But what is really at issue are two key decisions—what impact retirement income will have on your accumulated wealth and how afraid you are of outliving your wealth. Blanchett cites a study by Allianz asking whether people were in greater fear of dying or outliving their income, and more people feared the latter.

Yet people don’t like the idea of handing their wealth over to an insurance company. Advisors can point out that people hand over their money to their home insurance company wthout any expectation they will make money on the deal.

Another way to frame things: Would you rather have a low-cost annuity from Vanguard or a portfolio withdrawal strategy based on active managers charging 300 basis points? Ultimately, Blanchett says, “If you really care about your wealth, you don’t want an annuity. But if you’re afraid, you don’t want income risk. For each person, preference factors and perception of risk differs.”

Either way, advisors help their clients plan for an uncertain future. Most “black swan” events, Blanchett says, are really “black turkeys”—events that are foreseeable if unlikely. Looking at whether you smoke and other factors, it is reasonably possible a person will live to 105. Not having an annuity, yet planning to live to an old age, may unduly prevent a person from consuming enough income.

Federal marriage benefits? Not for everyone

AP for Yahoo News writes: Like other married couples, same-sex couples are about to learn that federal benefits for being married might not be all they're cracked up to be.

Social Security benefits for spouses can be generous, but only for couples with big disparities in their incomes. Taxes are a decidedly mixed bag, and there are still a lot of unanswered questions for the Internal Revenue Service.

Many middle-income couples should get welcome tax breaks now that they can change their filing status from "single" to "married filing jointly." The biggest benefits will go to couples in which one spouse makes more money than the other.

But those at the top and bottom of the income scale could face significant tax increases.

High-income taxpayers could feel the pinch because the tax code still contains substantial marriage penalties for couples with higher incomes. Low-income taxpayers could lose benefits that target the working poor, such as the earned income tax credit, if they get married and their spouse's income disqualifies them.

Low-income parents also could lose other government benefits such as Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, if they get married and their spouse's income pushes them above certain limits.

"The poor gay couples, particularly if they're raising children, are going to face the same huge penalty structure that's now faced by low-income households in general," said Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury official who is now a fellow at the Urban Institute.

"In that case, they may have won the court battle but are still stuck in a social structure where the government basically tells them, do not marry or you're going to lose a lot of money," Steuerle said.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down parts of a federal law that denied government benefits to same-sex couples, even if they were married in states that recognize same-sex marriages.

In 2004, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 1,138 provisions in federal law in which marriage was a factor. Some were obscure, like being eligible to represent your spouse in negotiations over surface mine leases with the Interior Department.

Among the biggest were spousal and survivor benefits for Social Security. Social Security was designed to protect workers and their spouses even if the spouse didn't work. Under the program, if one spouse works and the other doesn't, the nonworking spouse can get retirement benefits simply by being married to the worker.

And if the worker dies first, the nonworking spouse gets 100 percent of the worker's retirement benefits.

Nearly 7 million spouses and surviving spouses get Social Security benefits, according to agency data. Those benefits should soon be available to same-sex married couples.

Social Security was designed "at a time when they had this very stereotypical view of the family," Steuerle said. "They wanted the spouse to have the same benefit as the worker, if the worker died."

The benefits disappear, however, if both spouses work and earn about the same amount of money over their lifetimes. In this case, both spouses simply get the benefits they earned by working and paying into the system.

The Congressional Budget Office tried to estimate the effect on the federal budget of legalizing same-sex marriage in every state. On balance, the study said benefits and penalties would come close to equaling out and have relatively little effect on the federal budget.

Tax revenues would actually increase, but not by much — less than one-tenth of 1 percent.

For same-sex couples, like all couples, how marriage affects your tax bill depends on a lot of factors.

Consider an unmarried couple with no children. One partner makes $70,000 and the other makes $30,000. They would pay a total of $13,483 in federal income taxes if they each take the standard deduction and file as single adults, according to an analysis by The Tax Institute at H&R Block.

If that same couple were married, with the same combined income of $100,000, their federal income tax bill would decrease by $1,625.

That's because joint filers combine their incomes, allowing higher-paid spouses to shift some of their income into lower tax brackets, said Jackie Perlman, principal research analyst at The Tax Institute.

But those benefits disappear as taxpayers make more money because of the way the income tax brackets are structured, Perlman said.

For example, give that same unmarried couple a hefty raise. Now, one partner makes $225,000 and the other makes $75,000. Their combined tax bill, if they file as single adults: $71,861.

If they were married and filed a joint return, with the same $300,000 in combined income, their tax bill would jump by $5,714, according to the H&R Block analysis.

Some of the biggest tax savings will go to same-sex couples in which one partner relies on the other for employer-provided health insurance,

By law, employer-provided health insurance is tax-free for the vast majority of workers, married spouses and dependent children. But if a worker's unmarried partner is covered, those benefits, which can be worth thousands of dollars a year, are taxed.

Some wealthy same-sex couples could do well, too, if one spouse inherits a lot of money from the other. That was the central issue in the Supreme Court case that struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

But the case that doomed DOMA was uncommon. Only the very rich pay federal estate taxes — less than two-tenths of 1 percent of all estates, according to the Tax Policy Center. That's because estates of less than $5 million are exempt, and married couples can exempt estates as large as $10 million.

In the Supreme Court case, Edith Windsor of New York sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after her partner of 44 years died in 2009. Under federal law, married couples can inherit unlimited amounts of money from their spouses, tax-free.

In 2009, Windsor had to pay federal taxes on the portion of the estate above $3.5 million — an exemption that has since grown to more than $5 million — because the federal government didn't recognize her marriage. Because of the court's ruling, she now gets the entire inheritance, free of federal estate taxes.

The court's decision, however, left many questions unanswered. For example, taxpayers can generally go back three years to amend federal tax returns. If same-sex couples have been legally married for three years, can they amend past returns and get refunds?

"That is a great question, and it's one that is being asked all over the country," Perlman said.

Also, what if you were married in a state that recognizes same-sex marriages but now live in a state that does not? Do you file your federal taxes as a married couple and your state taxes as single individuals?

Stay tuned, says the IRS.

"We are reviewing the important June 26 Supreme Court decision on the Defense of Marriage Act," the agency said in a statement. "We will be working with the Department of Treasury and Department of Justice, and we will move swiftly to provide revised guidance in the near future."

Acalculator.com Aims to Help Employees with 401(k) Plan / With Up To Five Unique Calculators For 401(K) Related Calculators, The Website Strives To Educate Employees Regarding The Plan And The Contributions

acalculator.com recently launched a website that offers more than 300 free to use financial calculators for a diverse range of financial needs and requirement. The website has recently added a whole list of retirement calculators which includes a set of calculators for 401(k) retirement plan holders. Newly added calculators include 401(k) Savings Calculator, 401(k) Savings with Profit Sharing and 401(k) Spend It or Save It Calculator.

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About acalculator.com

acalculator.com is a newly launched website that offers budgeting and financial calculation tools for free. It was created by a panel of experts with experience in various areas of finance. The website currently features 300 different calculators ranging from mortgage calculator to long term care calculator. The website caters to users from USA, Canada and Australia by providing them essential tools to help them plan their financial future. To contact them, please use the following details.

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