Business Finance

TL;DR A mega backdoor Roth runs through a Solo 401(k) rather than an IRA, so the ceiling for 2026 is the $72,000 annual additions limit instead of the $7,500 IRA contribution limit. Your after-tax room is $72,000, or your full compensation if that is smaller, minus your elective deferrals of up to $24,500 and minus […]

TL;DR Since South Dakota v. Wayfair (2018), a state can require you to register and collect its sales tax even if you have no office, employees, or inventory there. Most states set the threshold at about $100,000 a year, some add a 200-transaction test, California and Texas use $500,000, and Connecticut and New York make […]

TL;DR What decides a legal fee is where the matter came from, not what the invoice says or who wrote the check. In United States v. Gilmore (1963), the Supreme Court called a divorce lawyer’s bill personal even though the fight put three car dealerships at risk. Contract disputes, collections, business tax advice, audit defense, […]

Booking an Airbnb instead of a hotel does not change the tax answer. For federal tax purposes, it is lodging. What matters is why you were there. If you traveled away from your tax home (generally the area of your main place of business, not necessarily where you live) for a genuine business purpose, the […]

If you’re trying to decide whether to pay someone on a 1099 or a W-2, the first thing to know is this: you do not simply choose the form you prefer. The real question is whether the worker is legally an independent contractor or an employee. Once that classification is correct, the tax form follows. […]

If you run a small business from home, tax deductions can make a real difference. But this area gets confusing fast. People mix up remote work with self-employment, assume every home expense becomes deductible, or focus so heavily on the home-office deduction that they miss the broader list of ordinary business write-offs. This guide covers […]

If you are buying or selling a closely held business, the headline price is only part of the deal. A transaction can be structured as an asset sale or a stock or equity sale, and that choice changes liability exposure, tax character, basis recovery, required consents, and the seller’s after-tax proceeds. Buyers often prefer asset […]

If your accountant is slow to respond, repeatedly misses important details, or only appears when a tax return is due, changing firms may be the right move. Switching accountants can often be managed without major disruption when records, system access, unfinished work, and upcoming deadlines are addressed deliberately. In this guide, we’ll explain when it […]

Business travel expenses are not automatically deductible just because the trip involved work. The IRS distinguishes between personal commuting, local business transportation, and travel away from your tax home, and each category follows different rules. In this guide, we’ll explain which small business travel expenses qualify, how mixed business and personal trips are handled, and […]

If you run a business in Virginia, one of the easiest ways to make an expensive mistake is to assume there is just one “Virginia business tax.” There isn’t. Virginia businesses can face state income tax, tax on income passed through to their owners, optional pass-through entity tax, local BPOL tax, and Virginia SCC filing […]

If you run an online business, you have probably heard the same advice repeatedly: incorporate in Delaware, form your LLC in Wyoming, or use Nevada to save taxes. In most cases, that advice is incomplete at best and expensive at worst. The right state to form an online business is generally much simpler than the […]

If you’re hoping to write off cosmetic surgery on your taxes, the short answer is usually no. The IRS generally treats elective cosmetic procedures as personal expenses, which means they are not deductible as a business expense and usually not deductible as a medical expense either. The normal path to a deduction is documented medical […]