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Everyone needs to do estate planning. It is more than just planning for death. Estate planning is designing a program for effective wealth building, preservation, and disposition of property at the minimum possible tax cost. This exceptional mini-course surveys wills, living trusts, gifts, marital property, and probate avoidance. Designed to eliminate estate problems and death taxes, the emphasis is on practical solutions that are cost-effective. The text reviews and explains both federal gift and estate tax systems giving practice pointers and planning observations. ASSIGNMENTAt the start of the materials, participants should identify the following topics for study:* Build, preserve & distribute* Legal documents* Estate planning team* Estate administration* Estate planning techniques & devices* TrustsLearning ObjectivesAfter reading the materials, participants will be able to:1. Identify the key participants and their roles in a coordinated estate plan and recognize the probate process including trust administration.2. Determine specialized estate planning tools recognizing the use of trusts and identify how such tools save death taxes and transfer wealth while accentuating asset control.3. Specify recommended trust provisions and requirements identifying how these terms and rules impact estate and trust taxation.

This mini-course integrates federal taxation with overall financial planning. The course explores tax strategies relating to the central financial tactics of wealth building, capital preservation, and estate distribution. The result is a unified explanation of tax economics that will permit the tax professional to locate, analyze, and solve financial concerns. Designed to improve the quality of services to clients and the profitability of engagements, this program projects the accountant into the world of financial planning. As a result of studying the assigned materials, you should be able to meet the objectives listed below.ASSIGNMENTAt the start of the materials, participants should identify the following topics for study:* Comparing goals and purposes* Investment goals and retirement planning* Building an estate* Section 1031 like-kind exchanges* Retirement plans* Tax credits and estimated taxes* Basic deductions* Income splitting* Elimination* Fringe benefitsLearning Objectives:After reading the materials, participants will be able to:1. Identify investment purposes and retirement misconceptions, the multi-step retirement process, and the elements of investment planning.2. Determine income types, from a tax perspective, to be budgeted into cash so that income-producing assets can be acquired and managed for an effective investment plan.3. Recognize the means of achieving tax deferral through like-kind exchanges, retirement plans, and installment sales, and specify the double financial benefit of exchanging through tax postponement and possible tax elimination.4. Determine how to use tax credits, estimated taxes, and basic deductions to effectively reduce federal income tax and thereby increase discretionary income for investment purposes.5. Specify formats for income splitting that can benefit taxpayers by lowering overall taxes as a unit and permitting wealth and tax allocation among individuals or entities.6. Identify the tax benefits of the $500,000 home sales exclusion, municipal bonds, divorce and separation settlements, gifts and inheritances, life insurance, fringe benefits, and Social Security to eliminate tax on realized gain and ordinary income.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act was enacted to minimize abuse of the bankruptcy system. Included in this Act were tax law changes and other changes that individuals, partnerships, and corporations will see in the bankruptcy procedures and qualifications. This mini-course both examines these changes that debtors will face when filing for federal bankruptcy and also explores the many tax issues of bankruptcy. Practitioners will also learn about other issues such as homesteading and garnishment by creditors. As a result of studying the assigned materials, you should be able to meet the objectives listed below. ASSIGNMENT At the start of the materials, participants should identify the following topics for study: * Tax law changes * Bankruptcy types * Automatic stay * Preferences * Priorities * Debt discharge * Individual bankruptcy estate * Individual debtor * Corporate bankruptcy * Homesteading & garnishment Learning Objectives After reading the materials, participants will be able to: 1. Identify changes made by the 2005 Bankruptcy Act, the common types of bankruptcy, and filing qualifications. 2. Determine the impact of an automatic stay, the treatment of preferential transfers, the priority of claims, and the discharge of debts. 3. Recognize the creation and taxation of an individual bankruptcy estate specifying partnership & corporate bankruptcy differences. 4. Identify the scope of and special rules for homesteading and garnishment.

Business expenses are the costs of carrying on a trade or business, and they are usually deductible if the business is operated to make a profit. This mini-course reviews various expenses that businesses may deduct and the requirements that must be met for those expenses to qualify for deduction. Furthermore, practitioners can use this as a guide to determine which of their clients taxes are deductible as business expenses. As a result of studying the assigned materials, you should be able to meet the objectives listed below.ASSIGNMENTAt the start of the materials, participants should identify the following topics for study:* Section 162* Expenses of not-for-profit activities* Rent expenses* Interest expense* Deductible taxes* Other selected deductible costs* Amortization* Depletion -613* Business bad debts* DepreciationLearning ObjectivesAfter reading the materials, participants will be able to:1. Cite the elements of 162 and the limitations imposed by the not-for-profit provisions stating how these elements and restrictions impact business deductions such as cost of goods sold, leases, taxes, loan points, and interest expense.2. Determine the corporate dividends received deduction, identify the cost allocation on the business use of a residence and specify casualties, thefts, and research costs in the context of business deductions under 162.3. Recognize methods of amortization for business startup, organizational costs, and 179 intangibles with the cost depletion methods used on natural resources.4. Identify depreciation rules related to ACRS and MACRS, and cite the elements of the business bad debt provisions under 166.

Taxpayers are once again looking to CPAs for guidance and planning related to travel and entertainment expenses. This comprehensive mini-course examines and explains the practical aspects of business travel and entertainment deductions. To determine the expenses that taxpayers are able to deduct, fundamentals are reviewed and planning opportunities are identified. Practitioners will learn to master the proper administration of these complex and often cumbersome provisions. As a result of studying the assigned materials, you should be able to meet the objectives listed below.ASSIGNMENTAt the start of the materials, participants should identify the following topics for study:* Transportation & travel distinguished* Definition of tax home* Temporary & indefinite assignments* Business purpose requirement for business travel* Convention & meetings* Statutory exceptions of ordinary & necessary requirement * Entertainment facilities* Employee expense reimbursement & reporting* Self-employed persons* EmployersLearning ObjectivesAfter reading the materials, participants will be able to:1. Recognize the away from home requirement and related deductions, determine what constitutes transportation and travel expenses specifying the tests for tax home and recognize the differences between temporary and indefinite work assignments including their effect on a tax home.2. Identify the business purpose requirement using the 51/49 percent test, determine deductible conventions and meetings, and specify the limitations applied to meals and lodging when traveling.3. Determine what constitutes business entertainment and identify business entertainment activity deduction restrictions and disallowance.4. Specify the 274(e) exceptions to entertainment deduction disallowance, recognize the necessity of expense substantiation, and determine accountable and non-accountable plans stating the impact on deductions.

 

Description:  This course will examine certain qualities a leader must exhibit to set an ethical tone from the top.  Who should Attend:  Those who make difficult or significant daily decisions, or who work in fast-paced or challenging environments will benefit from this timely and insightful seminar.   Program Content: 

• Examining the lives of ordinary people whose moral courage had a significant impact on those around them. 
• How anyone, irrespective of their role in an organization, can inspire others to embrace ethical attitudes. 
• Showing how even simple actions can outsized effect on a person’s sphere of influence.

Learning Objectives:  By the end of the seminar, the participant will be able to: 

1. Examine critical qualities of an ethical leader. 

1. Discuss extraordinary examples of ethical behavior from ordinary people. 

1. Take away action steps for increasing your ethical presence in your workplace. 

By changing many of the rules traditionally applicable to health insurance and imposing healthcare-related requirements on virtually every individual, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is likely to affect virtually every person in the United States in some way. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) imposes various tax increases in order to generate revenue and uses a carrot-and-stick approach to ensure individuals comply with its provisions by offering tax credits for compliance and, until 2019, by imposing tax penalties for noncompliance.

There is little doubt in the minds of many observers that the world of work environment in which a legion of wage earners commute to an employer's office or worksite to toil from 9 to 5 is changing, and that impression is bolstered by recent studies. Among those studies is a Gallup report titled The Gig Economy and Alternative Work Arrangements. The changing nature of work for many taxpayers is likely to have an effect on tax preparers' need to prepare Schedule C. The gig economy, an economy characterized by multiple types of alternative work arrangements including independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers, engages 36% of U.S. workers. Gallup, in its report, also estimates that 29% of all workers in the U.S. have an alternative work arrangement as their primary job. Whether the strength of the gig economy is due to the flexibility and freedom it affords, the fewer limits on the income it exerts compared to being a wage earner, or results from some other advantage it offers, it seems clear that barring a cataclysmic event affecting the economy, the gig economy is here to stay and intent on growing larger with each year. With that growth is the likely growth of tax preparers need to be familiar with the preparation of Schedule C.