News
Business Miles 56.5 cents Medical/Moving 24 cents Charitable 14 cents The standard business rate is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating a car. Taxpayers have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle in lieu of the standard rates. The standard rates cannot be used […]
More and more taxpayers are experiencing identity theft; their refunds are stolen by culprits who have obtained enough of the taxpayer’s personal information to file a return before the taxpayer does. They submit a change of address form and then paper file a return. Electronically filed returns require additional information from the prior year’s return […]
To ensure adequate time to prepare your return, please have all corporate tax information to us by February 25, 2013. Individual return information must be provided to us no later than March 28, 2013. Extensions are not automatic, so we must have your information submitted to us by the above dates to give us adequate time to prepare […]
Every year, numerous small businesses fail – not because they had a bad business nor for lack of business, but because they didn’t take the time to control their finances. If you want to survive in today’s economic climate, you must have financial information that tells you if you are making money, which expenses are […]
Be ready for your auditors. Have every item completed that was listed in the year end letter. Auditors are so busy that they schedule jobs weeks in advance. When they arrive at the job, they expect the client to be ready. When information is not ready, it delays the audit and sometimes requires extra trips to […]
Sometimes clients are confused as to how we bill and will question why certain services are billed. In the next few paragraphs, we will try to explain what is involved in the billing process. CPAs have only one product to sell – our expertise in audit, accounting and taxation. It takes years of study and […]
EFS is pleased to announce that Lily Dalton joined our firm in December to assist managing the tax department. Lily graduated from California Polytechnic with a BS in mathematics, from San Jose State with an MS in mathematics and she received a Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Accounting from the University of Maine with a 4.0 […]
Over the past few years, auditing standards have become more and more complex, resulting in higher costs to the clients and more small firms leaving the audit business altogether because they can no longer spend the time and money to keep current. More and more firms will find themselves penalized in the Peer Review process […]
The AICPA recently issued a new auditing standard, SAS 112, Communicating Internal Control Related Matters Identified in an Audit. This new standard replaces a similar one. It contains, however, new guidance and terminology. It will require auditors to: Evaluate identified control deficiencies and determine whether these deficiencies, individually or in combination are significant deficiencies or material […]
Visit IRS.gov for current IRS standard mileage rates.
For several years, we have encouraged our clients to e-file their returns. Both state and local governments have been encouraging e-filing for several years. Maine requires all tax preparers to e-file 1040 individual tax returns. Quotas have been established; if they are not met, the state will charge us and allow us to pass on the cost […]
In recent months, the IRS has contacted an increasing number of our clients to audit their tax returns. We have not experienced this for many years. It appears the pressure from the US Senate and Congress to crackdown on delinquent taxpayers and fraudulent returns has had some effect. They intend to select 13,000 returns a […]