Remodelers, Make Sure To Pay All The Taxes You Can This Year. Really?
The holiday season is now upon us. For small business owners, in addition to celebrating the holidays with family and friends, it’s also the time of year to start making plans and doing budgeting for next year. To increase your after taxes net profits next year you might want to consider paying more taxes this year. Here is why.
At the end of September I posted a blog about the impending Fiscal Cliff. In that blog I pointed out several ways the Fiscal Cliff decisions might affect remodeling businesses. I also pointed out that how our country’s leadership ultimately decides to deal with the pending changes would depend quite a bit on who won the presidential election. The election is over and President Obama will be our leader for the next four years. With that in mind I suggest small business owners re-read that blog post and look into the list of possible tax changes that are now more likely to occur with President Obama remaining in office.
(Click here for a pretty good Fiscal Cliff summary by NPR)
A Few Ways You Might Be Affected:
The House Committee on Small Business has offered a chart on its web site to show the potential changes and affects on small businesses if the current Bush Era Tax Cuts are not extended. Remodelers could be hit really hard because many of them are organized as “pass-through” entities, where their business gains or losses are reflected on their individual tax returns. Several that could really affect the after tax profitability for remodelers includes:
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An increase in capital gains from 15% to 20% (33% increase!)
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An increase in tax rates on business dividends received by individuals will be treated as ordinary income (higher rates) rather than as capital gains, currently 15%.
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Tax rates in the top four brackets will be increased to (from current rate): 39.6% (35%), 36% (33%), 31% (28%), 28% (25%)
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Small businesses with undistributed taxable income will no longer be taxed at the current rate on dividends (currently 15%), but rather will be taxed at the highest individual tax rate (up to 39.6%).
What To Do:
So, to limit your tax liability I suggest remodelers speak with their accountant ASAP to fully understand how the potential changes and ultimately any actual changes will affect you and your business. Remember, profits can be used to reinvest back into your business, but you must pay tax on those profits first, leaving only the remaining profit available to invest. The same holds true if you were planning to use business profits for other personal purposes such as paying for your children’s’ college education or buying a new home or RV. Back when I owned my remodeling business my accountant helped me strategize how to claim certain revenues and profits in one year versus the other depending on my effective tax rate for each respective year. By doing so in one year I saved over $20,000.00 the next year!
Make Sure You Have The Right Accountant:
There nothing worse than the feeling of working really hard to earn a profit only to find out that you could have reduced your total tax burden (and the amount of profit you get to keep) by taking advantage of simple and completely legal tax strategies. A big lesson for me when I owned my remodeling business was making sure I had the right accountant and financial advice. Saving money on an accountant’s fees might just cost you far more in taxes than the money you might save if you have chosen your accountant based on price rather than value, strategic advice and timely services.
My second accountant cost me twice as much as my first. It was well worth paying the difference because of the money I saved in taxes. It still is!
