Business Benefits of Economic Stimulus
Posted by Dante Layton
The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 contains two provisions that provide tax benefits for businesses. The first provision increases the limit up to which a business can expense property purchased and placed in service during its 2008 tax year. The second provision provides an additional 50 percent special depreciation allowance for property acquired and placed in service during calendar year 2008.
Unlike the economic stimulus payments that millions of individuals have already received, the tax benefits for businesses are not automatic; businesses must act to take advantage of the new provisions by purchasing qualifying property.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that businesses stand to lower their 2008 tax bills by roughly $45 billion as a result of the two business provisions in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008; these provisions accelerate into 2008 the tax benefits that otherwise would not have been available until future years.
IRS Increases Mileage Rates
Posted by Dante Layton
The rate will increase to 58.5 cents a mile for all business miles driven from July 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2008. This is an increase of eight (8) cents from the 50.5 cent rate in effect for the first six months of 2008.
In recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2008. The IRS normally updates the mileage rates once a year in the fall for the next calendar year.
“Rising gas prices are having a major impact on individual Americans. Given the increase in prices, the IRS is adjusting the standard mileage rates to better reflect the real cost of operating an automobile,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers.”
While gasoline is a significant factor in the mileage figure, other items enter into the calculation of mileage rates, such as depreciation and insurance and other fixed and variable costs.
Intuit Releases Document Management System for QuickBooks
Posted by Dante Layton
Intuit has released a software program called “Intuit DMS for QuickBooks Accounting”. The new document management system (DMS) integrates with QuickBooks financial software to provide convenient access to documents from the desktop. The program helps QuickBooks users increase organization and productivity while reducing their operating expenses.
The key feature of the program is that it organizes information by folder type. Which are Customers, Vendors, Employees, and Other Folders. Then in each folder are the names that belong to its type. Intuit DMS further organizes information by three tabs for each name, Documents/Folders, Name Information, and Issues.
The Documents/Folders tab is where the folders, subfolders and documents are organized. The Name Information (Customer Information, Vendor Information, Employee Information, etc.) tab consists of contact information for that name. The Issues tab features very light weight issue tracking that allows issues to be created by date, resolutions by date, and assignment of issues to people with due dates.
Intuit DMS also allows us to import our customer, vendor, and employee names from our QuickBooks data file. We can even email and fax documents directly to our customers from the program, including burning documents onto a CD.
However, the most impressive benefit of this program are its cost savings.
