Rob Morris

​For small businesses, managing payroll can be one of the most arduous tasks. Adding to the burden earlier this year was adjusting income tax withholding based on the new tables issued by the IRS. (Those tables account for changes under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.) But it’s crucial not only to withhold the appropriate taxes — including both income tax and employment taxes — but also to remit them on time to the federal government. 

If you don’t, you, personally, could face harsh penalties. This is true even if your business is an entity that normally shields owners from personal liability, such as a corporation or limited liability company.

Rob Morris

Now more than ever the IRS is encouraging everyone to do a quick "paycheck checkup". To help with this task the IRS provides a Withholding Calculator tool so that you can identify the proper amount of tax to be withheld from your paycheck. As per the IRS, there are several reasons to check your withholding which include:
​

• "Checking your withholding can help protect against having too little tax withheld and facing an unexpected tax bill or penalty at tax time next year. ​"
  
  
• "At the same time, with the average refund topping $2,800, you may prefer to have less tax withheld up front and receive more in your paychecks."

The process only takes a few minutes and you'll want to have your most recent paystubs and tax return to ensure an accurate result. 

If your circumstances change during the year, you should come back to this Calculator to make sure that your withholding is still correct. The IRS does not save or record the information you enter on the Calculator.

It's also important to remember that for complex tax situations, the IRS recommends following the instructions in Publication 505. 

To change your withholding, use the results from the calculator to complete a new W-4 and give the updated W-4 to your employer.

Rob Morris

During a recent Friday afternoon "lunch and learn" with our staff we discussed the need to look at things from another perspective. This video from Smarter Every Day illustrates the difficulties we face when we need to retrain our thinking.

Humanity is experiencing a time of unprecedented technological change. As a result of these rapid changes and in an effort to engage with our customers in a secure and modern way we realize the import of thinking differently about doing business in 2020 instead of 2010. We're constantly evaluating new technology to ensure that our client and staff interactions and data are secure. One way we do this is through our adoption of duo-authentication to protect against unauthorized use of our computers and apps.

We're aware that apps account for 89% of mobile media time and that email-based cybercrime is still the biggest threat faced by companies. Because of this awareness, we're working hard to reduce both our staff and client emails with tools such as slack and we NEVER send confidential information via email. We're also investing in a client facing mobile app that completely replaces email and the old way of doing things.

What are you doing today to protect your business from cybercrime? Are you working in a modern way? Is your employee and customer data secure? Are you ready to protect your business against new a.i. security challenges? We'll keep you updated in future posts in regard to what we're doing to ensure our firm is answering these questions. If you haven't seriously considered these issues until now then I urge you to do so with haste and to use our experience and recommendations as a guide.

We always look forward to hearing from you, so feel free to reach out to us for details on how we're utilizing technology for a better client experience or how you might benefit from these tools as well.