This is the time of year in our CPA practice that we work with small business owners and individuals to perform tax checkups to help them project their tax liabilities for 2013 and make tax saving recommendations of moves that they can make between now and year-end.

That 18% service charge received for parties of eight or more will soon become taxable as wages subject to payroll taxes for food servers across the nation. Until now, these service charges were considered tips, and it was left to the wait staff to report them as income.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have loosened the “use it or lose it” rule for flexible spending arrangements for health care, allowing participants in health benefit plans to carry over up to $500 from their FSA from year to year.

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) requirements for issuing social security number (SSN) printouts are less stringent than the requirements for issuing replacement SSN cards.

A taxpayer we will call Clint, decided to do his daughter a favor. She was attempting to purchase a home that was in foreclosure. Part of the qualification to buy the home was having a substantial amount of funds on deposit. Clint took an IRA distribution and deposited part of it in a non-IRA escrow account. He intended to rollover the distribution back into the IRA upon the completed purchase of his daughter's home.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at a summary of Ohio’s tax law changes for 2013 (TTW# 214). This week we will take a closer look at the tax deductions available to individuals with “Ohio small business investor income”.