Saturday, December 20, 2014

Intuit Sets New 52-Week High at $95.83 (INTU)

Shares of Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) hit a new 52-week high on Friday. The company traded as high as $95.83 and last traded at $94.71, with a volume of 1,932,333 shares. The stock had previously closed at $94.48.
Posted on 7:51 AM | Categories:

The 50% Bonus Depreciation Rule is Back for 2014!

Tom Copeland for the Tomcopelandblog.com writes: A law just passed by Congress has revived the 50% bonus depreciation rule for 2014!
This rule had expired as of the end of 2013, but is now back.
This revived rule applies to the following items:
        Computer, office equipment, fence, furniture, appliances, patio, car/truck, and playground equipment. It does not apply to home improvements or a home.
The law allows you to deduct 50% of the business portion of these items in 2014, and depreciate the remaining 50% using the normal rules of depreciation.
To be eligible for this rule, the item you purchase must be new. Computers, cars, and televisions must be used at least 50% of the time in your business for them to be eligible for this rule.
Here's an example of how the 50% rule works. Let's say you buy a fence in 2014 for $1,000 and your Time-Space Percentage was 40%. Your business portion would be $400. Normally you would depreciate the $400 over 15 years (as a land improvement). But the 50% depreciation rule allows you to deduct 50% of the amount, or $200 ($400 x 50%). You would depreciate the other $200 over 15 years. Your 2014 deduction on the second $200 would be $10 ($200 x 5% = $10 first year of fifteen year depreciation) for a total deduction of $210. 
Without this new rule, you would have to depreciate the full $400 over 15 years: $400 x 5% = $20 deduction for 2014.
Should you purchase items before the end of the year to take advantage of this rule?
If you were planning to buy any of these eligible items in the near future, you will get a bigger tax break if you buy them in 2014. This is because the rule has not been extended to 2015.
Although this is a nice tax break, do not use this rule as an excuse to buy stuff for your business that you don't need! Never buy something just to get a tax break. Your taxes will never go down the same amount as the cost of the item.
In other words, in the above example, even if your fence was used 100% for your business you will still get a tax deduction of only $525 ($1,000 x 100% business use = $1,000 x 50% = $500 + $25). If you were in a very high tax bracket, your taxes would only go down by about $250.
I've written more about this in my article, "It's Deductible! Why Shouldn't I Buy it?"
State Income Taxes
Some states do not follow this 50% rule and deny child care providers this deduction on their state tax return. They may require you to report as income on your state tax return some of the amount you deducted using this rule. Check with your state department of revenue or your tax professional.
The 50% bonus depreciation rule has come, gone and come back again. To keep on top of these tax changes, keep following my blog.
Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com
Posted on 7:50 AM | Categories:

Wave Accounting: An Early Review

I always get a little nuts this time of year, nuts in a good way, in a “I am going to OWN next year” kind of way. I revisit my goals for the existing year and assess my success. I analyze how I can be and do better next year, not just as a writer, but as a business owner (because, you know, writing is a business). I take a close look at how I’m managing finances and at my overall systems, not only for money (expense receipts, invoices, and the like) but also for communication and task management.
As I started the process of assessing 2014, I realized that I really needed to get some new systems in place before 2015 rings in. My accounting system, in particular, needed an overhaul; it was scattered and inefficient. By drawing up original invoices every time I needed to bill a client, I was wasting a lot of time. And by doing this in Word or Excel and simply storing invoices in a folder on my desktop, I was creating extra and unnecessary work for myself with respect to tracking payments.
I started talking with colleagues, asking them what systems or software they are using. Some said Quickbooks or Freshbooks; others sang the praises of Harvest. I took a quick look at each of these, but was discouraged by the fee-based structures. I’m always looking for ways to trim my expenses, not add to them, so despite the glowing recommendations for some of these services, I was more inclined to look at free apps. Sure, I could try Quickbooks or Freshbooks free for two weeks or a month, but did I really want to go through the hassle of setting up accounts, inputting my financial information, and then shutting down the accounts in a few weeks? Instead, I decided to set up a new system on Wave, a free service.
It took about 30 minutes to establish an account and link several of my bank and credit card accounts to Wave. The interface was fairly easy to use, though I had difficulty with one bank account, and it was clean and uncluttered, too. The dashboard is a one-stop-shop for useful information.
I set up the invoicing system right away, as that was my primary reason for signing up for a Wave account. Creating an invoice is easy enough, but I wish the “Memo” section was offered in the default template as opposed to the customized one. When attempting to edit the invoice, the system got hung up and I had to refresh the page, which cleared the invoice, requiring me to start all over again. I’m also not thrilled about receiving daily (so far) emails from Wave informing me about features or services that I could be taking advantage of; perhaps I need to play around with my settings to turn these emails off.
I’m a little bit concerned about having all of my accounting information in the cloud rather than on my own desktop, but overall, I’m happy with the service. Wave tracks what I’d rather not, which is whether invoices have been paid, and has helped me to create a standardized system for billing clients. There was widespread agreement among friends that each accounting program has its pros and cons, and if the choice is between a paid service and a free one, I’ll take the latter.
Posted on 7:30 AM | Categories: