Knight Accounting and Technology

Visit www.cpamichele.com and click on the Schedule page.  Book early to get the best timeslot/location that works for you!

Knight Accounting & Technology has scheduled a QuickBooks class for the Denver area.  The class will be December 13^th from 10:30 – 2:30pm in Arvada.  It will cover topics including: QuickBooks installation and setup, Transaction Entry, Invoicing and Payment Receipts, Downloading, Reconciliations and Reporting.  The cost is $175.  If you are interested, please email Michele Knight (cpa@cpamichele.com) and I’ll send along more details!

IRS Announces New Voluntary Worker Classification Settlement Program;
Past Payroll Tax Relief Provided to Employers
Who Reclassify Their Workers as Employees

WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service today launched a new program that will enable many employers to resolve past worker classification issues and achieve certainty under the tax law at a low cost by voluntarily reclassifying their workers.

This new program will allow employers the opportunity to get into compliance by making a minimal payment covering past payroll tax obligations rather than waiting for an IRS audit.

This is part of a larger “Fresh Start” initiative at the IRS to help taxpayers and businesses address their tax responsibilities.

“This settlement program provides certainty and relief to employers in an important area,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “This is part of a wider effort to help taxpayers and businesses to help give them a fresh start with their tax obligations.”

The new Voluntary Classification Settlement Program (VCSP) is designed to increase tax compliance and reduce burden for employers by providing greater certainty for employers, workers and the government. Under the program, eligible employers can obtain substantial relief from federal payroll taxes they may have owed for the past, if they prospectively treat workers as employees. The VCSP is available to many businesses, tax-exempt organizations and government entities that currently erroneously treat their workers or a class or group of workers as nonemployees or independent contractors, and now want to correctly treat these workers as employees. 

To be eligible, an applicant must:

• • Consistently have treated the workers in the past as nonemployees,
• • Have filed all required Forms 1099 for the workers for the previous three years
• • Not currently be under audit by the IRS, the Department of Labor or a state agency concerning the classification of these workers

Interested employers can apply for the program by filing Form 8952, Application for Voluntary Classification Settlement Program, at least 60 days before they want to begin treating the workers as employees.

Employers accepted into the program will pay an amount effectively equaling just over one percent of the wages paid to the reclassified workers for the past year. No interest or penalties will be due, and the employers will not be audited on payroll taxes related to these workers for prior years. Participating employers will, for the first three years under the program, be subject to a special six-year statute of limitations, rather than the usual three years that generally applies to payroll taxes.

Full details, including FAQs, are available on the Employment Tax pages of IRS.gov, and in Announcement 2011-64, posted today.

Thanks to all for your support & votes…Knight Accounting & Technology was voted Best Accounting / Financial Services firm of Summit County!  (see page 32 below if you want proof!)  I’m so thankful for all the votes, and I’m very honored to be recognized in this way.

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20110907/SPECIAL/110909867/1078&ParentProfile=1055

Hi Everyone!  I’ve got a HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!  The Rotary Club of Summit County is offering an AMAZING opportunity to win hundreds of thousands of dollars CASH or a $1Million Ski-in, Ski-out Condo in Breckenridge, Colorado.  I know I send you information from time to time on events our Rotary Club is undertaking, but we are really going for the brass ring this time!

We are raffling off a $1Million dollar, full ownership, one-bedroom, slope-side condo in Grand Lodge on Peak 7. It is an incredible property with a list of amenities a mile long!  Or, if you prefer, you split ½ the raffle profits in CA$H!  We are also paying thousands of dollars in INTERIM PRIZES – in bi-weekly drawings staring July 19 (that’s this coming TUESDAY) – through December 20th. You could be the winner of an interim prize AND still win the GRAND PRIZE on New Year’s Eve, 2011!

This is our biggest undertaking to date and we are hoping it will help us to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to give back to our local and global communities. The majority of the money we raise stays right here in Summit County and goes to support such things as the Community Care Clinic, our literacy programs, scholarships, the 9 Health Fair, Cardio Plus and so many other worthwhile projects. Globally, we work to eradicate polio, provide clean drinking water, and provide disaster assistance to those in need – victims of Katrina, the Haitian earth quake, tornados in the mid west…. the list goes on.

I sincerely hope you will support this important work.  Get your entries online TODAY www.WinDreamCondo.com  or you can call Judi LaPoint at 970-389-6470!

Thanks so much for your support!
Sincerely,
Michele Knight

Good news for taxpayers, bad news for tax preparers…the IRS announced a new mileage rate to take effect July 1, 2011.  The rates will jump as follows:

Business Mileage – from 51 cents to 55.5 cents
Medical/Moving Mileage – from 19 cents to 24.5 cents
Charitable Mileage remains the same at 14 cents

These new rates refelct the increased gas prices this year,  but it means that small business owners ABSOLUTELY must track their mileage on a regular basis in order to properly classify their mileage and be able to take advantage of the increased mileage rates.

DENVER (Source: 9 news) - If you’re unemployed, buckling under bills, and at-risk of losing your home, the government might be able to help you make your mortgage payments.

Colorado homeowners will get more than $41 million in interest-free loans under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program (EHLP). Some people who meet specific criteria may not have to pay the money back.

Housing authorities are expecting a flood of applicants in Colorado. Authorities are only taking pre-applications right now. All those names will go into a lottery. If your name is drawn, you can then apply for the loan program.

Under the program, about 1,000 people in Colorado will get a home loan of up to $50,000 for two years, interest free. To qualify, you have to show your income dropped at least 15 percent due to serious illness or job loss, you have be at least three months behind on your mortgage, and your household income in 2009 had to be less than $93,840.

HUD is dividing $1 billion among 27 states and Puerto Rico and Colorado’s share is $41 million. When the money is spent, the program is over. The program is designed to help people who are at-risk of losing their homes. Colorado has the 10th highest foreclosure rate in the nation.

“The phones are ringing off the hook,” Zachary Urban of the Adams County Housing Authority said. “People are knocking on the door. People are in a very tight spot right now. So, any hope out there is something that they’re rushing to see.”

Supporters of the program say these loans will help the economy by preventing foreclosures.

Some folks won’t even have to pay the money back if they’re in the same financial trouble five years from now.

There are critics who say the program basically amounts to a $50,000 handout. The Wall Street Journal reports some Republicans in the House of Representatives tried to kill the program.

Homeowners have one month to apply. The deadline is July 22.

For more information, visit www.FindEHLP.org or call toll free at 855-FIND-EHLP (346-3345).

Are you an employer in Colorado?  Be watching your mailbox in June or July, because an assessment is on it’s way.   Colorado employers pay premiums into the Colorado Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund to pay for unemployment benefits. The recent economic downturn caused an unprecedented demand for unemployment benefits in Colorado and across the country. In January 2010, Colorado joined 30 other states in borrowing money from the federal government so that we could continue to pay unemployment benefits from the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.  Unless Congress acts, by law, certain experience-rated employers must make an annual interest payment on borrowed money from the federal government (see the Colorado Employment Security Act 8-77-103). All active, experience-rated employers must share in the repayment of the federal loan interest, so when you get an assessment bill, please don’t think it’s junk mail and throw it out!  If you are an employer in Colorado, you will need to make this payment or else be subject to interest and penalties.

On April 14, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Comprehensive 1099 Taxpayer Protection and Repayment of Exchange Subsidy Overpayments Act of 2011 to rescind the Form 1099 tax reporting requirement included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of Heath Care Reform.  (In English, the President reversed part of the Health Care bill)

Under the reporting requirement, businesses would have been required to issue a Form 1099-MISC to corporations as well as non-corporate entities for the purchase of tangible goods and services over $600. The tax filing requirement did not directly relate to health care but was initially included as a funding measure for the health care bill by reducing un-reported and under-reported income that would otherwise be taxable. However, small firms and self-employed individuals voiced concerns that the requirement would bury them in paperwork.

 In addition, the law also repeals the expanded Form 1099-MISC reporting under the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 that required individuals who receive rental income from real estate to report rental property expenses on Form 1099-MISC.

Many small business owners received a letter in the mail this week called the Periodic Report  – Directors / Shareholders – Colorado Corporate Control.  The bill is for $225.  This is NOT from teh Secretary of State and is NOT a legitimate bill for you or your business.  DO NOT PAY IT!  Your Secretary of State registration is controlled at their website, www.sos.state.co.us, and a timely filed annual report costs $10, not $225.  Please help me spread the word!