Taxes

Best CPA in Austin Texas

Taxes can be more complicated when you have a business, property, and family. Plus, the tax codes keep changing. Hiring the best CPA in Austin, Texas, can make life a lot easier. Experienced CPAs not only ensure you prepare and file your taxes properly and on time, but they can also help you with your bookkeeping and accounting.

If you’re searching for personalized, expert accounting services, look no further than us. At Insogna CPA, we offer a range of services for individuals and businesses. We have the best CPA in Austin Texas committed to offering the highest quality tax and accounting services.

What Makes Our Firm The Best Choice For CPA

According to many of our clients, here’s what makes us the number one choice for CPA.

Taxes Are Our Forte

We know that taxes can be really confusing. But taxes are all about numbers, and we love numbers. As the best Austin accountants, we have plenty of experience dealing with taxes. We’re always up-to-date with the changing tax regulations and rules happening often. This means that by hiring us, you can ensure compliance with all the tax laws.

We’ll Save You Time And Money

While it could take you very many hours or even days to do your own taxes, we’ll only need a fraction of that time to put your taxes in order. Our CPA firm in Austin has done this thousands of times, and each time, we make sure our clients’ taxes are filed correctly.

Plus, we’ll save you money. We have all the latest tax-saving opportunities right at our fingertips because, after all, it’s one of our main areas of focus throughout the year. And it doesn’t matter if you have multiple income streams. You might still qualify for additional tax savings.

Trusted Financial Advisors

As a reliable CPA firm, we’re here to make money matters easy for you. Whether you’re dealing with debt, taxes, or planning for the future, we’ve got your back. Our friendly experts help you figure out how to pay off debts, understand taxes without the headache, and plan for retirement without stress. We also help you choose the right insurance and make budgets that work for you. If you need down-to-earth advice and support to handle your finances, just give us a call!

Better Work-Life Balance

Tasks like recording receipts, setting financial targets, tax returns, and bookkeeping are essential for the success of your business. However, they consume a lot of time. By delegating such duties to our team, you can have more time on your hands to dedicate to your business and family.

Cost Management

Cost management is everything when running a business. And it’s one of the reasons why you need the best Austin accountants. Our CPAs will assess the financial health of your business to determine areas where funds are being spent unnecessarily and recommend cost-saving alternatives. Our goal is to optimize your revenue and help put more money in your pocket.

Premier CPA Firm

If you’re on the hunt for the finest CPA in Austin, Texas, look no further! We’re proud to be a top-rated CPA accounting firm, dedicated to providing unparalleled solutions for all your tax and accounting needs. What sets us apart? We never take a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, our expert team customizes our tax and accounting services to perfectly fit your unique requirements. Whether you’re an individual or a business, we’ve got you covered. Ready to experience the difference? Contact us today to schedule a consultation and discover why we’re the go-to choice for CPAs in Austin, Texas. Reach out now at 210-942-3962.

Insogna CPA

+1 210-942-3962
3355 Bee Caves Road Suite 503
Austin TX 78746

How to Build Wealth at Each Stage of the Typical E-Commerce Business Life Cycle


How to Build Wealth at Each Stage of the Typical E-Commerce Business Life Cycle

Life doesn’t happen all at once. And neither does the wealth-building process.

Wealth building for business owners — just like life — has important milestones that tend to guide a structured financial planning approach for successfully building an appropriate nest egg. 

As you move through life and experience each of these milestones, it makes sense to engage a fiduciary specialist who can act as a partner as you navigate issues including business advisory, tax, estate planning, etc. 

“Managing many Ecommerce businesses over the years, we tend to see four stages that owners go through, with each phase generally needing a specific set of CPA services,” says Chase Insogna, President of Insogna CPA.

To make the wisest choices possible for your unique situation, understanding the various wealth building stages is important. Keep reading to learn more and see where you are in your journey.

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The Four Stages of Wealth Building for Business Owners


Stage 1: Starting Out (<$100K in Annual Revenue)

In this first stage, you’re just getting your business up and running. 

Maybe you’re expanding from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce online selling. Your first big month might have just happened or it’s on the horizon.

You’re refining the big ideas of your business plan. You’re continuing to secure capital and laying out strategic objectives and growth targets. 

Perhaps you’re still doing all of your own sourcing and pricing.

But to truly propel the business to the next level, it’s time to consider outsourcing back office functions like accounting, inventory management, and tax planning. 

Wondering why?

It’s simple. Many up and coming E-commerce businesses think they can juggle it all. And they think handling everything themselves will save a few bucks. But in reality, the DIY approach leads to a significant mess to clean up that erodes any initial savings and can actually end up costing boatloads of money.

Here are just a few reasons to move the accounting function off your plate:

  • You’ll establish sound accounting practices while you’re building other foundational pieces of your business. 

Errors made in the early stages of your operations tend to snowball and create costly problems down the road. 

  • Professional financial records are non-negotiable when it comes time to secure financing.

As eCommerce companies move along the continuum of wealth building, pursuing financing opportunities is common practice. In order to ensure that the financing process proceeds seamlessly, well-kept financial records are essential.

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Stage 2: Accelerating ($100K-$500K in Annual Revenue)

During this stage, your business is scaling fast. Keeping up with back-office work is becoming a source of constant stress, your team is growing and so are your profits. Maybe you’ve even left your job to focus full-time on your online business.

Growth is exciting. But it also comes with a new array of complexities. Accountants for entrepreneurs know all about this and can help in a variety of ways during this stage of growth.

  • Accountants for entrepreneurs help you with all of those things you don’t even know you don’t know.

From sales tax laws, insights about your business, and strategic advice that get you closer to your goals to cash flow requirements, properly maxing out retirement plan funding, and minimizing taxes, accountants that specialize in Ecommerce businesses help you manage things you haven’t even thought about yet.

  • An accountant can help you properly establish an LLC to protect your business. 

If your business is not properly registered, someone could legally claim your brand name. If you sell on Amazon and/or similar platforms, changing your business name and EIN# can result in you losing all of your customer reviews. 


Stage 3: Expanding ($500K-$1MM in Annual Revenue)

In this stage, as your workload intensifies even further, a licensed CPA can be your best friend.

It’s likely you have no time to grab yourself a coffee, much less perform enough research to inform seemingly mundane decisions. But with the right CPA firm, you can focus on strategically reinvigorating your company’s momentum and growth.

For example, maybe you’ve decided to hire your spouse and your kids and build a true family business. You know that hiring a spouse can result in tax savings. But this arrangement can backfire if you don’t do it the right way. 

From evaluating and prioritizing business goals to solidifying a tax strategy and a financial plan for your future and the future of the business, your CPA serves just like a safety net. 

Accounting firms that specialize in e-commerce business can serve as a comprehensive advisory team to:

  • Offer well-informed, objective, and future-focused opinions about every aspect of your business
  • Provide you with a procedural and technical knowledge base as you evaluate new software, platforms, etc.
  • Maximize tax deductions
  • Estimate your income taxes, and how much is available for potential tax-deferred savings to minimize your current year tax burden as much as legally possible
  • Evaluate additional insurance needs 
  • Set up payroll as you expand without violating government regulations
  • Design employment and/or contractor agreements
  • Construct benefit plans that motivate and retain your top-talent 

As you grow your business with a licensed financial business advisor, you’ll be moving into the next phase knowing that you’re setting adequately aggressive profitability goals, creating well-timed acquisition strategies, and developing risk management processes along the way.

 


Stage 4. Established ($1MM+ in Annual Revenue)

As you accumulate money, property, business gains, and other assets, you’re building wealth. Now it’s time to properly manage that wealth.

Together with a licensed CPA firm, you can design a unique plan for your particular situation that continues to grow and protect your business as well as your personal assets for future generations.

The financial tools and strategies you use as you build and manage your wealth will change with your timeframe, risk tolerance, and overall financial picture. 

Click here to learn how an Ecommerce-focused CPA firm like Insogna CPA can help address your business and personal financial goals as you scale your business, your wealth, and your future.

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How Businesses Increase Cash Flow by Having A Proactive Tax Strategy

Regardless of how well your business is doing, the tax levied on your revenue probably feels like an extra expense, and it’s often treated this way. Properly managed, however, your tax responsibilities can be turned into an opportunity for growth and stability. Adjusting your attitude towards and treatment of your taxes and adopting a proactive tax strategy can actually increase cash flow for your business.

Instead of thinking about taxes at the end of the fiscal year, it’s in your company’s best interest to create a proactive tax strategy while there’s still plenty of time to implement it. In this article, we will outline the benefits of creating a proactive tax plan early that will improve your cash flow, build more resilience into your business model, and allow you to pay less tax at the end of the year.

What Is Cash Flow?

When you’re running a business, whether small or large, cash flow management is vital to your success. Your cash flow is how much money is available to your business at a given time and how it is best used to maintain operations.

The net income your business receives from sales or services, less expenses, is taxable. So, while you will most likely put that money back into operating your business, you must always put a percentage aside to pay an appropriate amount of tax. So what is an appropriate amount? That is where ongoing advisory can help.

A large tax bill at the end of the year has the potential to cripple your businesses cash flow if not managed properly. Applying forecasting strategies will ensure that you’ll have the funds you need when taxes are due.

Save for Future Costs

When your business is going strong and gushing cash, using that extra cash can be tempting to invest, increase salaries, and embrace growth strategies. You want to be visionary when deploying cash flow based on your business and personal financial goals.

Most businesses have a cyclical nature, which means they are more profitable at a certain time than others. This requires critical cash flow forecasting so not to overspend during strong cash months and not leave enough for lower cash-flow months (plus taxes owed).

If you want to strengthen your balance sheet and use cash-flow forecasting for planning growth and achieving financial goals, it’s advisable to regularly update your forecast in real-time. Additionally, you want to set aside savings in an account to pay your estimated taxes.

Understand Tax Obligations

It’s important to understand the taxes you need to pay before it comes time to pay them. The tax system in the USA regarding sales tax, for instance, permits each state to set its own rates for particular items. It is also regional, meaning that areas of a state have the autonomy to set their own rates, too. Self-employment tax, personal property tax, excise tax, franchise tax and more comprise the taxes you may be subject to paying.

To make matters more difficult, tax laws change from year to year. Research your state and region’s rules regarding tax payments and employ a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) if necessary; a CPA can ensure your books are correct, your tax is paid on time, and will save you money where legally possible.

Consulting with a CPA throughout the year will ensure that your strategic cash-flow forecast and tax strategy plan is on-target for year-end. As you make investments, face new challenges, and set new goals, your CPA will make sure that you aren’t missing out on possible deductions and other opportunities to deliver the most savings legally possible.

How Can A CPA Help?

You can get in touch with a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for help with tax strategizing. Outsourcing these responsibilities can help alleviate inexperience in these subjects, allowing you to focus on things that make you great.

The right CPA can help create an ongoing cash-flow forecast and proactive tax strategy that helps you maximize savings and reach your financial goals.

Contact us at Insogna CPA for our team approach to helping manage your cash-flow forecast and ongoing tax planning strategies so you avoid paying the IRS more than you have to.

Want help managing your cash-flow forecast and ongoing tax planning? Contact Insogna CPA today to learn more about how our team approach can help your business achieve its financial goals.

Tax Planning vs. Tax Preparation

If you run a small business or are self-employed and need to pay business taxes annually, you could be losing money due to inefficiencies in your tax planning process. Paying your tax bill all at once at the end of the fiscal year might seem like the most efficient thing to do, but it can result in poor cash flow and IRS penalties.

In this article, we look at the tax-efficient process of tax planning with a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) versus the more inefficient transactional tax preparation process. If you don’t know where to begin, then a CPA can help you get organized and ensure that you aren’t paying too much, or too little, in taxes.

What Is Tax Preparation?

Tax preparation is the once-a-year process of preparing the fiscal year’s tax return. It involves gathering all the documents and data you will need to file your taxes, and organizing this data in line with present IRS reporting. tax preparation is a transactional course of action that doesn’t allow for ongoing advice that can help lower taxes, especially when compared with the ongoing nature of tax planning.

Depending on what industry you’re in, or the level of experience you have, your tax preparation can take a while to arrange and complete. It’s recommended that you start tax preparation early, but tax preparation generally doesn’t give you the time you need to maximize your savings. 

If you are unsure of the complexities preparing your taxes can bring, along with confusions of how to legally minimize your taxes as much as possible, the process can be frustrating and extremely time consuming.

What Is Tax Planning?

Find yourself filing taxes in the spring and hear ‘you should have contacted me last year to help save you money’? If this is you, a CPA can help! 

When you own a pass-thru business, each year your tax due on your taxable business profits are due when filing your personal IRS1040 tax return. The amount of tax payable is determined by several factors, including how much revenue is earned less related expenses. Many companies wait until taxes are due and pay in a lump sum, but this is extremely tax-inefficient, and depending on how much is owed may result in additional IRS late-payment penalty.

Tax planning is the process of estimating your tax-due regularly throughout the year by understanding and keeping track of what you owe. This can include continual, ongoing advisory based on your income less expenses and making recommendations throughout the year that not only helps advise on taxes due for the year, and also deferral options to lowering your taxable income for the year before the year is over. 

Consulting with your CPA on an ongoing basis throughout the current tax year is an excellent way to stay on top of things. Tax planning takes into account your cash flow needs and wealth goals, and it gives you time to uncover deductions in the current tax year. Efficient tax planning can improve your cash flow and save you money. 

For example, if a company waits until the end of the year to prepare its taxes, it may have overspent through the tax year. Conversely, with ongoing tax planning, the company is able to manage its taxable income throughout the year, only pay the required taxes when necessary, and know what cash flow is available for wealth planning and deferring taxable income. 

Why Is Tax Planning Beneficial? 

Tax planning is all-around beneficial to a business. As mentioned above, ongoing planning will alleviate cash flow when taxes are due in April each year and increase tax-efficiency lowering your taxable income during the current tax year as much as legally possible. 

Additionally, ongoing planning can reduce the amount of tax you pay, give you control over when and how you pay taxes, and prevent you from paying unnecessary tax. When implemented correctly, tax planning is the most reliable way to operate your business. 

What Can A CPA Firm Do? 

Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are professionally licensed individuals dedicated to understanding all things tax, understanding the IRS Code, and working closely with businesses like yours helping with monthly accounting in order to provide ongoing tax planning strategy. Ongoing advisory throughout the tax year allows CPAs to advise you are only paying the right amount of tax due and helping save current taxes with tax deferral strategy planning.

CPAs are also trained in federal tax laws. They know the most up-to-date regulations and can advise you accordingly. This information can be extremely beneficial as the IRS often changes policy, and if you are not in the loop of changes this can result in missed deduction opportunities, or worse—penalties and fines. 

A CPA firm can do the planning for you, alleviating pressure and allowing you to focus on your day-to-day operations. Paying taxes might feel like an enormous expense if you are shouldering your business’s tax planning, but outsourcing to CPA professionals can save you money and even help you grow your wealth.

Tax planning is an effective, essential way to maintain your company’s tax responsibilities. With planning, you create financial structure in your business and are continually looking for ways to save on taxes. With a qualified CPA team, tax planning can be a huge win for your business and your personal tax savings.

Are you ok paying more to the IRS this year? Tax planning strategy happens year-round with ongoing clients at Insogna CPA. Contact us today for ongoing tax strategy planning.

Tax Season: How Your Business Taxes Might Be Affected

The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on the business world and the global economy. In our nation’s current situation, businesses and business owners are having to take steps to reassess the way they handle the financial aspect of their businesses, especially with 2020 business taxes due in a few short months.

Business finances could potentially take a major hit as a result of this pandemic, but there are many nuances to 2020 business taxes that, if understood correctly, could help avoid unnecessary headaches. 

CARES Act

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act has the potential to help you improve the state of your 2020 business taxes following the difficulties that the coronavirus pandemic has brought on. The CARES Act came about in March of this year and was designed to provide relief and financial help for companies and individuals.

Listed below are some potential effects of the CARES Act that you can either benefit from or need to keep an eye out for as a business owner.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan

Small Business Administration (SBA) loans were designed to aid small businesses in maintaining employees during the pandemic, helping to reduce layoffs and lessen the pandemic’s economic impact. The loan was intended to be put toward payroll and operating costs. Applications for PPP loans closed on August 8, 2020. 

These loans have the potential to be forgiven, if they were used as the government intended, but applications for partial and full forgiveness might not be processed by the time tax season starts. Whether or not the loan is forgiven will affect a company’s accounting, so delays in forgiveness notifications could make it difficult to wrap up the 2020 taxes for some businesses.

PPP Flexibility Act

Amendments were made to the PPP on June 5, 2020. Loans granted after this date carry a maturity period of five years; originally, the SBA had set a two-year term to PPP loans. Modifications were made to extend the covered period for loan forgiveness, too: 24 weeks after the loan is received or December 31, 2020, whichever comes first.

The amendments updated the amount of the loan that small businesses could spend on non-payroll costs and still be eligible for partial loan forgiveness. They also extended the timeline for businesses to qualify for FTE and Salary/Hourly Wage reduction safe harbors from June 30, 2020 to December 31, 2020, contingent on the business fully restoring FTEs and/or salary/hourly wages. A new FTE Reduction Exemption was made to provide loan forgiveness will not be affected if FTE reduction was a result of not being able to rehire employees or go back to pre-pandemic business conditions.

Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL)

Similar to PPP loans, EIDL are SBA loans that can be used to support businesses negatively affected by COVID-19 and are beneficial to those who are self employed and who do not have employees. Keep in mind that funds from both programs cannot be used for the same purpose. EIDL have to be repaid in full and has different terms than PPP Loans.

Businesses who applied for EIDL received up to $10,000 in advance, a sum of money separate from the loan and technically considered to be a grant. Because the EIDL advance isn’t a part of the loan that needs to be repaid, it won’t be treated as a loan on your financial statements and tax return. 

The IRS has issued recent Notice that this advance will be considered taxable income and will not change unless Congress passes legislation to alter it. This forgiveness amount should be included with 2020 taxes as Other income, to offset 2020 PPP-related expenses, if the loan “can be reasonably expected” to be forgiven. 

While EIDL and PPP loans aren’t necessarily taxable, expenses paid for by the loans cannot be included as tax deductions. So, while you won’t have to pay taxes on the SBA loans, you miss out on otherwise deductible expenses that you will have to pay taxes for. Keep in mind that this is what has been directed by the IRS in recent Notice’s; future Congressional amendments to these current guidelines could change how this forgiveness money is taxed.

Employee Retention Credit (ERC)

If a business did not get an SBA loan, they might qualify for an ERC. An ERC is a refundable tax credit equal to 50% of up to $10,000 of qualified wages per eligible employee paid after March 12, 2020, through Dec. 31. 
Eligible employers include entities with any number of employees who have been affected by COVID-19 in one of two ways.

  1. Operations were partially or completely stopped in accordance with a government order.
  2. More than a 50% reduction in gross income for a calendar quarter when compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

There are plenty of things to consider when looking at how your business accounting might be impacted for the upcoming 2021 tax season, and you would be wise to begin planning now. 

2020 taxes are more complicated with PPP, CARES Act and your growing profits. Contact Insogna CPA today for helping minimize your taxes as much as legally possible.

What If Remote Working Creates Nexus for Your Business?

If your company had to close its doors as a result of the pandemic, you should find out if remote working creates nexus for your business. Nexus is a term used when a company deals with any aspect of its business outside of its own state. To put it simply, nexus is another word for connections that have a taxing jurisdiction.

It essentially allows you to subject your business to different tax laws, depending on what municipality, state, or country you have nexus in. Nexus laws constantly change, so it’s important to keep yourself updated on the topic if it’s relevant to you and your business.

How to Know If Remote Working Creates Nexus

The pandemic has resulted in a lot of remote working and nexus for companies that might not have had either in the past. If your company has employees who went out of state to quarantine in their own homes or other locations with family members or friends, chances are they’ve created nexus. 

We are in a unique situation, one that has surely resulted in more businesses having nexus in a variety of new places. What does this mean for your company? Well, if you had an employee who worked for you from another state, it could result in you needing to pay withholding on wages for employees working in that specific area. It could be collecting sales tax on sales, dealing with income tax, licenses, etc.

As the IRS extends tax filing and payment due dates, there have been issues as a result of states conforming or not conforming to current circumstances. There are some possible problems that may come from employees working outside of the state they were hired to work in.

Individual Income Tax Payment And Withholding

Any individual income tax and related payroll withholdings are usually sourced to the state where the employee performed their work. As many employees are now telecommuting due to COVID-19, certain states and cities have adopted the ‘Convenience of the Employer’ test. 

This means that the wages of those remote workers are sourced to the employer’s location unless it was decided to have the employee in another state based on the employer’s necessity, rather than the employee’s convenience. For example, Philadelphia-based employers who are working outside the city are exempt from the city’s wage tax for the days spent working.

Apportionment

There’s also the issue of apportionment; many states still use a three-factor method of property, payroll, and sales to help calculate the business tax apportionment factor. As employees are now working from home, states could insist that the compensation paid is creating a payroll factor numerator.

This topic hasn’t been addressed explicitly during COVID-19 by all states, but those states who are facing it have said that they won’t adjust a company’s apportionment percentage due to the result of employees telecommuting from the state in question.

State Taxes

When it comes to the physical presence of employees in multiple states, the state taxes that a business pays could be affected. Under normal circumstances, a business would have nexus for state tax purposes if it has a physical presence in a state. This would affect things like income, sales, use, receipts, gross, and franchise tax. 

Now, however, employers have very control over where their employees work from. These could be normal conditions for the foreseeable future; until this pandemic is over employers might be hesitant to gather all of their employees in one place again.

Even though dozens of states have announced that they won’t impose nexus on employers, there are still many gray areas surrounding the issue. There’s no specific guidance around COVID-19 related telecommuting and whether states will end up creating nexus for tax purposes. The guidance issued seems to be temporary, so the future of this issue is up in the air.

What States Are Doing

As of September 16, 2020, each state is on its own in regard to telecommuting and nexus during the pandemic. For Alabama, there’s no nexus to be introduced, yet Arkansas has not released a statement whatsoever. Neither Florida nor Hawaii have issued guidance either, as seems to be the case for quite a few states. 

On the other hand, there are those who have imposed nexus, like Nebraska and Utah. It’s also interesting to see a few states saying yes to some and no or maybe to others, depending on circumstance. For example, Arizona has said ‘no’ to Nexus being imposed for corporate income tax but a ‘maybe’ for transaction privilege tax.

It seems that there’s still a lot of uncertainty and confusion for employers whose employees are currently working from a variety of places. As COVID continues to affect working conditions, it doesn’t seem like this is an issue that will disappear anytime soon. 

If remote working creates nexus for your company as a result of COVID-19, you might consider partnering with a team of CPA experts to help you figure out what might be your most complicated tax year to date.

Contact us at Insogna CPA for help with all of your business accounting needs.