Thursday, February 12, 2015
Five Tax Deductions & Credits For Special Needs Families
Bernard A Krooks for the Friendship Blog writes: Parents of children with special needs often have unique financial concerns, and one way to ease those concerns is to reduce their tax burden.
There are many tax deductions and credits available that parents may not be aware of. Parents of children with special needs should familiarize themselves with the deductions and credits and take care to document all expenses related to their children’s medical expenses, development and therapy.
Here are 5 useful tax deductions and credits for parents of children with special needs.
1.) Medical and Therapy Expenses
The first type of deduction to consider is for medical and therapy expenses. For income tax purposes, learning disabilities are a type of medical condition. This may include autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, and other learning disabilities.
While these expenses are limited by 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income, the limitation may be exceeded by certain types of out-of-pocket expenses.
Such expenses can include the following:
2.) Specialized Foods
A gluten-free, casein-free diet can be used as a deduction provided it is medically recommended. Generally, only the additional cost of the specialized foods over and above what would be paid for similar items is deductible.
3). Legal Expenses
In some cases, legal expenses related to your child’s special needs may be deductible, for instance if you hire an attorney to help you prove that your child’s medical expenses are legitimate.
Tax Credits
Even more helpful than a tax deduction is a tax credit, which applies directly to the amount of tax you owe. The tax credits most helpful to parents of special needs children are the Child and Dependent Care Credit and the Earned Income Credit. In both cases, a credit that is normally only available for children may also be used for an older child with special needs.
4.) Child and Dependent Care Credit
The Child and Dependent Care Credit may be applied when you pay someone to care for your dependent, and it provides a tax credit of up to $3,000 per dependent, to a maximum of $6,000 for all dependants. Child-care, after-school programs and day camp qualify for the credit.
The credit is available for children under the age of 13, but the age limit does not apply to older children with special needs.
5.) Earned Income Credit
The Earned Income Credit can also be useful for parents of children with special needs. The credit generally may be applied by families with a low to moderate income and children under the age of 19, or up to age 23 for full-time students. However, for adult children living with their parents, the age limit does not apply.
In Conclusion
Parents of children with special needs know that there are unique challenges involved, including financial hurdles. However, with careful planning and the assistance of an experienced attorney who is sensitive to special needs issues, you can make sure you do what is necessary to reduce your tax burden and protect your child’s interests.
There are many tax deductions and credits available that parents may not be aware of. Parents of children with special needs should familiarize themselves with the deductions and credits and take care to document all expenses related to their children’s medical expenses, development and therapy.
Here are 5 useful tax deductions and credits for parents of children with special needs.
1.) Medical and Therapy Expenses
The first type of deduction to consider is for medical and therapy expenses. For income tax purposes, learning disabilities are a type of medical condition. This may include autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, and other learning disabilities.
While these expenses are limited by 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income, the limitation may be exceeded by certain types of out-of-pocket expenses.
Such expenses can include the following:
- Special schooling such as: tutoring that is specifically intended to address the special needs of the child.
- Regular education when it is intended to treat the child’s special needs.
- Aides that a child may require to benefit from education.
- Exercise programs, if they are recommended by a medical professional.
- Transportation to and from special schools or therapy sessions.
- Equipment, devices and supplies necessary to treat or alleviate a medical condition, including technology items such as communication devices.
A gluten-free, casein-free diet can be used as a deduction provided it is medically recommended. Generally, only the additional cost of the specialized foods over and above what would be paid for similar items is deductible.
3). Legal Expenses
In some cases, legal expenses related to your child’s special needs may be deductible, for instance if you hire an attorney to help you prove that your child’s medical expenses are legitimate.
Tax Credits
Even more helpful than a tax deduction is a tax credit, which applies directly to the amount of tax you owe. The tax credits most helpful to parents of special needs children are the Child and Dependent Care Credit and the Earned Income Credit. In both cases, a credit that is normally only available for children may also be used for an older child with special needs.
4.) Child and Dependent Care Credit
The Child and Dependent Care Credit may be applied when you pay someone to care for your dependent, and it provides a tax credit of up to $3,000 per dependent, to a maximum of $6,000 for all dependants. Child-care, after-school programs and day camp qualify for the credit.
The credit is available for children under the age of 13, but the age limit does not apply to older children with special needs.
5.) Earned Income Credit
The Earned Income Credit can also be useful for parents of children with special needs. The credit generally may be applied by families with a low to moderate income and children under the age of 19, or up to age 23 for full-time students. However, for adult children living with their parents, the age limit does not apply.
In Conclusion
Parents of children with special needs know that there are unique challenges involved, including financial hurdles. However, with careful planning and the assistance of an experienced attorney who is sensitive to special needs issues, you can make sure you do what is necessary to reduce your tax burden and protect your child’s interests.
Google Apps for Business helps you and your team stay productive in and out of the office. Use with ProsperWorks, the CRM for Google Apps!
Google Apps for Work is a robust bundle of apps built for business on the run. Work with your team from anywhere with this fully synchronised suite of apps, stored securely in the cloud. Taking Gmail functionality to the next level, Google Apps for Work offers the ultimate in security, and consistency plus extra storage and compatibility with a huge range of third-party systems.
Google Apps for Work includes:
- A professional email address using your domain (name@yourdomain.com)
- Gmail for Business, Google Calendar, Contacts, Drive, Google Docs and more
- Over 30 GB of storage
- Customisable security settings
- 24/7 technical support.
Why you’ll love Google Apps for Work
We just know you’ll love this versatile suite of tools. Here’s why.
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Buddies in Touch: Personal Social CRM Start Up
Horace Chan for Horace's Thinking writes: Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Seattle Start Up Weekend and work with an amazing group of people from all over the west coast. The idea that our team tried to tackle was Buddies in Touch – your personal, social CRM. We did not end up continuing the project, so I thought I would share the ideas here and see if there is more interest in the idea.
What is it?
Buddies in Touch is designed to be your social CRM. What CRM is to sales or marketing people keeping track of sales leads and campaigns, Buddies in Touch is to general consumers keeping track of their friendships in a personal manner (i.e. not professional).This solution aims to maintain friendships that matter and cultivate the ones that should. The need we saw was with friends losing contact with each other once they moved away from each other, found new jobs, etc, and the reason for the growing distance is not due to a lack of interest in maintaining it, per se, but many times due to “laziness” or simply not contact each other enough over the years due to forgetting or not knowing what to talk about. We all want great friends, but we don’t necessarily act as the best friends ourselves. This app aims to change that.
Buddies in Touch is designed to be your social CRM. What CRM is to sales or marketing people keeping track of sales leads and campaigns, Buddies in Touch is to general consumers keeping track of their friendships in a personal manner (i.e. not professional).This solution aims to maintain friendships that matter and cultivate the ones that should. The need we saw was with friends losing contact with each other once they moved away from each other, found new jobs, etc, and the reason for the growing distance is not due to a lack of interest in maintaining it, per se, but many times due to “laziness” or simply not contact each other enough over the years due to forgetting or not knowing what to talk about. We all want great friends, but we don’t necessarily act as the best friends ourselves. This app aims to change that.
What does it do?
With Buddies in Touch, we envisioned an experience where a user would be able to keep track of the relationships that matter to them. A user would log in with their Facebook credentials, and from there, they would be welcomed with a stack of cards, similar to Tinder, where they would swipe right or swipe left on which relationships the user cares about maintaining. Each relationship would include a rating to show the user how strong the relationship between the two are. When navigating into a specific relationship’s card, the user would see some highly relevant data
With Buddies in Touch, we envisioned an experience where a user would be able to keep track of the relationships that matter to them. A user would log in with their Facebook credentials, and from there, they would be welcomed with a stack of cards, similar to Tinder, where they would swipe right or swipe left on which relationships the user cares about maintaining. Each relationship would include a rating to show the user how strong the relationship between the two are. When navigating into a specific relationship’s card, the user would see some highly relevant data
- “Total Recall” – Perhaps the simplest yet most useful feature is what we called “Total Recall”. This feature is simply a section on each contact card where the user can input the relevant information from their last interaction with each other. The goal of this section is to help the user and contact re-connect the next time as if they were picking up right where they left off.
- Tags – Custom tags would allow the user to easily filter and create “playlists” for their friends.
- Reminders – Set reminders to keep you organized with reaching back out to friends.
- Last Communication – See when you last communicated with the contact.
- Latest Status Update – Pulls the latest status update from Facebook to give you relevant context when you view the contact.
- Shared Interests – Pulls the shared interests from Facebook as a reminder of what you both like.
Who would use this?
Young professionals – students that have just graduated and moved out all over the world that want to keep in contact with their old friends
Ex-pats – keeping in contact with friends from their old country and who they do not get to see very often
Young professionals – students that have just graduated and moved out all over the world that want to keep in contact with their old friends
Ex-pats – keeping in contact with friends from their old country and who they do not get to see very often
Why does it matter?
Maintaining meaningful relationships. That was our tag line throughout the weekend, and I think it holds true to why something like Buddies in Touch matters in our modern world. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter and all these other social media phenomena, people have become generally more superficial, more prone to quick satisfaction than longer term happiness. This may be an over generalization, but I have seen it in myself and my friend circles. With that being said, our theory was that although the trends show people moving towards superficial, quick communications, people are still searching for the long term, meaningful connections. This not only helps promote longer term happiness, but in the end, these connections are lifelong relationships that can help people with their career and their lives in general. If a person has 10-15 strong connections today, Buddies in Touch would help increase that to 30-40 strong connections all of the same “relationship quality”.
Maintaining meaningful relationships. That was our tag line throughout the weekend, and I think it holds true to why something like Buddies in Touch matters in our modern world. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter and all these other social media phenomena, people have become generally more superficial, more prone to quick satisfaction than longer term happiness. This may be an over generalization, but I have seen it in myself and my friend circles. With that being said, our theory was that although the trends show people moving towards superficial, quick communications, people are still searching for the long term, meaningful connections. This not only helps promote longer term happiness, but in the end, these connections are lifelong relationships that can help people with their career and their lives in general. If a person has 10-15 strong connections today, Buddies in Touch would help increase that to 30-40 strong connections all of the same “relationship quality”.
What are the pitfalls?
From what I saw and worked on that weekend, we still had one main problem: user validation. Although we talked to many people that weekend, the sample size was way too small (perhaps 100 people). From that, it was very difficult to ascertain if this is actually a useful product that people would want. It seemed that the particular target audience called out may find it useful, but we still do not have a good idea on what particular features would be most useful to either group.
From what I saw and worked on that weekend, we still had one main problem: user validation. Although we talked to many people that weekend, the sample size was way too small (perhaps 100 people). From that, it was very difficult to ascertain if this is actually a useful product that people would want. It seemed that the particular target audience called out may find it useful, but we still do not have a good idea on what particular features would be most useful to either group.
I may update this post later on as I have more time, but this was the general gist of what we worked on and our thought process.
Personally, I really wish I had something like this back in college and even today. I am not very good at keeping in touch with my friends (read: terrible at keeping in touch), so having a system to keep me up to date with who I should talk to and when would be very helpful. I have become distant with friends that I wish I could have kept stronger ties with, and I would hope there is an easier solution to keeping track.
Here’s to hoping our team can keep in touch for a long time after the weekend!
AU: MYOB adds smart bills feature / MYOB has announced the smart bills feature will now be available to clients using the AccountRight solution.
The software provider's SME solutions general manager, James Scollay, said smart bills provides a benefit to clients that no other accounting solutions provider has delivered in Australia and New Zealand - the ability to capture key data fields from supplier invoices and enter it into the software.
The data is then fully integrated into the workflow to enable easier compliance and better cash-flow management. It also allows for greater collaboration between SMEs and their accountant because the transaction is visible to both parties.
“This feature allows users to simply email or drag and drop a supplier invoice into AccountRight, which can be used to create a bill, or easily linked to an existing bill.” Mr Scollay said.
The feature uses optical character recognition (OCR) software to reduce the time business owners spend on data entry.
"If the supplier ABN is not already in your accounts, it will be read from the supplier invoice, validated against the ATO service and automatically added to the supplier details. This allows future bills from that supplier to be automatically matched. This unique feature to AccountRight provides multiple compliance benefits, such as ABN validation and the electronic storage of source documents. In other words, AccountRight users no longer have to keep paper files.”
Mr Scollay said the smart bills feature will make AccountRight even more compelling for SMEs, who also benefit from MYOB’s commitment to creating an easy and seamless experience for its customers.
“The smart bills feature is another way our online accounting products are helping to make business life easier. The ongoing innovation that bolsters feature-rich online solutions such as AccountRight is the reason a rapidly growing number of SMEs are switching to MYOB’s subscription services,” Mr Scollay says.
The feature was first introduced into Essentials Accounting, MYOB’s entry-level cloud accounting solution, in late 2014.
A Brit Hit as Xero reaches 60,000 UK SMBs milestone
James Henderson for ComputerWorld New Zealand writes: New Zealand cloud accounting firm Xero has surpassed over 60,000 small business customers in the UK, representing the sixth consecutive year of 100% growth across Great Britain.
Revealed at Xerocon London 2015, the Kiwi firm pledged £1 million commitment to partner marketing, aimed at supporting the growth of the company’s UK partners.
Also announcing the launch of UK Payroll, to be available in April 2015, Xero UK Managing Director Gary Turner says the UK division has also completed the addition of direct bank feeds with Metro Bank, alongside RBS, NatWest, HSBC and Silicon Valley Bank, with Santander also in the pipeline.
“The cloud business isn’t easy,” said Gary Turner, Managing Director, Xero UK, in his opening keynote address.
“And that’s why Sage hasn’t yet nailed cloud accounting, and Intuit Quickbooks is still navigating its way through.
“But Xero isn’t complacent about what it has to deliver; though, so far so good with more cloud customers than Sage and Intuit combined in Xero’s sixth year of 100%+ growth in the UK.
“So if there’s one thing we hope you’ll take out of this, it’s that “Desktop software is dead. We’re now living in a cloud reality.”
Xero also unveiled a new wave of innovation enabling small business to grow faster and increase UK GDP with the country’s first integrated cloud business management solution, offering all-in-one accounting and payroll solution, along with a business performance dashboard using big data to provide real-time business insights.
Is it possible Salesforce Integration with Xero? Yes!
Over at the Salesforce Developers forum we came across the following question:
Is it possible Salesforce Integration with Xero?
Is it possible Salesforce Integration with Xero?
Naga
Hi K Practice,
Hope you are doing well!!
The answer is Yes!!! Dime for Developers is designed for the specific purpose of building integrations between Salesforce and Xero easily.
You can find reference of all objects supported here
https://trineo.jira.com/wiki/display/XEROLIBRARY/Xero+Library
If you're requirements are simple then the Dime for CRM product is a good option too
http://tinyurl.com/dimeforcrm
Best Regards
Naga kiran
Hope you are doing well!!
The answer is Yes!!! Dime for Developers is designed for the specific purpose of building integrations between Salesforce and Xero easily.
You can find reference of all objects supported here
https://trineo.jira.com/wiki/display/XEROLIBRARY/Xero+Library
If you're requirements are simple then the Dime for CRM product is a good option too
http://tinyurl.com/dimeforcrm
Best Regards
Naga kiran
Visit Dime by clicking here
providing the missing link
between Salesforce.com and Xero
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We have developed an app that connects Salesforce to Xero, but as there are a number of solutions out there, I'l'l mention them all.
Naga has already talked about Dime for Developers, and we ocassionally recommend it when our own app, Breadwinner, doesn't do exactly what the client needs. Dime for Developers is a great starting point, and usually people hire Trineo (the developers of Dime for Developers) to complete the integration. But Dime for Developers is a development tool upon with further Salesforce Apex code must be added. Development costs start at aproximately 5k USD, often 10k USD, and can go up significantly from there. So people use this because they have complex automation and integration needs that aren't met by existing apps.
Our own tool Breadwinner, is an integration tool that can be installed and configured in about 20 minutes, does not require any coding or field mapping, and comes with a full-featured free trial. Where Breadwinner shines is that we offer complete two way sync. You can create Invoices in Xero through Breadwinner. And, you can see the Xero invoice status in Salesforce. So when a custom pays their invoice, and the finance team marks it as paid in Xero, everyone else in your company (even without access to Xero) sees that the invoice has been paid. This is shown at both the individual Invoice level in Salesforce, and at the Account level for that Salesforce Account. We even have a handy mini-dashboard on every Salesforce Account that shows the amounts for that Account - screenshot below.
The remaining apps include OneSaaS, Carry The One and Zapier. They have their own niche uses, but they don't keep Salesforce up-to-date with payment information. Instead, they are for workflow and automation. Their real strength is that all of them can connect Salesforce and Xero and 84 other tools. This strength is great when you need to have 3 and 4 and 18 way integrations, though it's a weakness when you need a 2-way integration as they can't integrate as deeply as an app like Dime for Developers or Breadwinner which just do Xero to Salesforce.
Obviously, I'm biased as we developed Breadwinner (https://breadwinnerhq.com/), but I'd encourage you to read the reviews, and then if you want, take advantage of our free trial (no credit card required) and connect Salesforce to Xero.
thanks
Stony Grunow
CEO of Daddy Donkey Labs (developers of Breadwinner)