Tips Guides

Offshore banking services can be a lifeline for companies, and are actually much more than ways to launder money, receive the proceeds of ransoms, or evade lawful taxes in your home country, as Hollywood would have you believe! Here we look at some things you may no have known about offshore banking, and how offshore banking in countries like Singapore, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands can be made much easier with help from investment management services and offshore banking services.

It is true that most of those who hold offshore savings accounts are the very wealthy - many of these people will have annual incomes greater than a medium-sized business’s turnover. However, this does not preclude small or medium businesses, or indeed private citizens, from the benefits of offshore banking in countries like Singapore. Offshore banking has many, and also incredibly variable, tax benefits. These depend on where your company is located, and where you plan to open an offshore banking account, but have the potential to save thousands.

For companies where travel is an ordinary part of business, offshore banking can have logistical as well as financial advantages. Offshore bank accounts are usually multi-currency, and can be accessed from ports all over the world. Standard bank accounts often have exorbitant fees for withdrawing money outside their usual modus operandi.

The number of loans and investment products that is available with offshore banks as compared to standard banks is immense. This gives businesses more freedom to choose investments that suit them, take advantage of trends in other countries, and also interact more easily with their branches on other continents.

There are several types of offshore savings accounts, including notice, no-notice, fixed rate and monthly interest savings accounts. Fixed rate offshore savings accounts offer fixed rates of interest over as set period - an excellent option if interest rates look set to fall. However, these accounts should ideally be left until the fixed period is over, as early withdrawals often carry hefty penalties. Your offshore banking services advisor can help, both with setting up a fixed rate offshore account, and knowing whether fees and penalties will outweigh the benefits of having the account, in case you need to withdraw early.

Notice and no-notice offshore savings accounts have opposite requirements in terms of what you need to do to withdraw funds. Notice accounts require you to advise the bank in advance of your wish to withdraw, otherwise penalties are applied. No-notice obviously do not require advance advice - but do not carry as high interest rates. The offshore banking industry in Singapore offers a large range of both notice and no-notice products.

If you are looking into offshore banking on behalf of an organization, you may want to consider monthly interest offshore savings accounts. While many offshore accounts pay interest either annually, or on maturity of agreement, these accounts pay monthly. This is a considerable positive for the cash flow of your company, and is also useful for individuals who are looking to make a regular income from interest payments.

One of the most important things to note when considering offshore banking is that it can be nearly impossible to investigate all of the regulations and rules yourself, and that it is highly recommended that you engage professional offshore banking services or investment management services.

The Zetland Financial Group provides the offshore investor with fiduciary Services, investment management and corporate advisory services, offering personal service and professional advice with total confidentiality.

For many Americans, April 15th is the most stressful day of the year. The date when federal taxes are due can strike fear into the hearts of the most stoic taxpayers.

Writing that yearly check to Uncle Sam can be quite distressing, especially if you find you owe more than you thought you would. What can be especially troubling is that the stress can stay with you, year in and year out.

But for many people, the stress begins long before the filing deadline. It may occur as early as December when the tax forms first arrive in the mail. Or it may happen when your W-2 form comes across your desk at work.

It may happen when you hear about tax season on television. Even getting your yearly interest statement from your bank might be enough to put you over the edge.

You may know some people who seem completely relaxed when tax time rolls around. It seems that they have everything in order, and they have little to worry about. For such people, tax day seems to be a virtually stress-free experience. You’ll find them whistling through the hallways at work while you’re hunched over your calculator, wondering whether you can pay your tax bill.

You need to realize that you can handle the stress of tax season without going ballistic. However, this means that you must be pro-active when it comes to handling your taxes. A little bit of planning can go a long way to reducing your taxes and your stress level.

To begin with, it could help you immeasurably if you seek the services of a financial planner. He or she can help you to take control of your finances, which can reduce your stress level considerably. Also, the financial planner can help you to employ certain strategies which will enable you to reduce your tax bill.

Next, you have to seriously consider whether it will do you any good to do your taxes yourself. While figuring out your own tax bill can give you a feeling of control, it can also increase your stress level tremendously.
Therefore, you might seriously consider hiring a tax accountant to handle the stress of your taxes. While such a move will not eliminate your stress entirely, it can seriously reduce it.

Keeping folders of all the documents you need for filing your taxes can also lessen your stress. If you keep the folders current throughout the year, you will not be in a mad rush at tax time to find the papers you need to file your return. You might consider color-coding the folders for easy reference.

Also, keep the folders in a central location. While a filing cabinet might be the best solution, you might also consider a hope chest, an end table, or a desk drawer. And be sure to keep all your records for at least three years in case a question arises about your return later on.

Another strategy for reducing your stress is putting an end to procrastination. While it might be tempting to wait until the last minute to file your taxes, it only increases your stress level. If you file your taxes long before the due date, you can rest easy when April 15th rolls around. You might be amazed at how much easier it is to deal with tax season when you’ve done some advanced planning.

If you find yourself facing a large tax bill, chances are you will feel stress, no matter what time you file. Therefore, you might consider opening a savings account specifically earmarked for taxes.

This way, you can save for tax day throughout the year. Another option is to increase your withholding on your weekly paycheck so that you don’t have such a huge bill to pay at the end of the tax year.

There is no reason to become overly stressed over taxes. They are a natural part of American life, the means by which the government is able to function. If you take a few pro-active steps, you can significantly reduce tax-related stress. It may be hard at first to break old habits. However, once you do, you might be amazed at how relaxed you feel when April 15th rolls around.

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These are some of the most important and best charity car donation tips you’ll need to consider before donating your car, truck, van or other any other vehicle. You can donate cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, ATV’s, even old motor homes and many other types of vehicles and get a good tax deduction.

1. First it’s important to know that the laws were changed in 2004 limiting the donor’s used car donation tax deduction to the amount the selected charity ends up selling the car for.

2. You want to find out if the charity is rightly eligible to be the receiver of tax deductible contributions so make sure that you ask for the organization’s Internal Revenue Service’s “Letter of Determination.” This will verify their status.

3. Make sure to get a good well-documented receipt from the charitable organization for your vehicle or car donation.

4. In order not to send up any red flags on your income tax return know that the IRS looks carefully at non-cash donations so make sure to clearly document the correct car or vehicle value and keep accurate detailed records.

5. If your used vehicle is worth $500 or even more, then complete the newest Internal Revenue Service tax deduction form, the number may change form time to time, fill out the proper portion and attach it to your income tax return. You must also include a written acknowledgement from the charity.

If your charitable organization sells your donated car, then they must provide you with the sales price within 30 days with a certification the automobile, truck, van or other vehicle was sold at between parties not related to each other. The donor’s tax deductions must be limited to the total the charity sold the car or vehicle for. If they don’t sell the car, they must provide you, the donor, with a receipt within approximately thirty days of the sale, whenever that occurs. They must also certify to the donor how it intends to use or upgrade/repair the car and state in writing that they will not sell the vehicle or transfer it to any other party.

6. If your car is valued at $5,000 or more you’ll need to get an independent appraisal and complete the appropriate part of the Internal Revenue Service form.

7. For cars or vehicles that are worth under $5,000, use either Kelley Blue Book or a guide from NADA to determine the current market value. Use the right and correct figure for the date, mileage, and car’s condition. Don’t just pick the highest figure for your vehicle year and model and not note other important factors. The IRS will look down on this.

8. Take several close-up pictures of the vehicle inside and out.

9. Save all your receipts for any upgrades including any new tires to document and verify the car or vehicle’s value.

10. It’s important to know that it’s not the charity or charitable organization, who is obligated to come up with the correct value and you’ll have to pay any penalties if the IRS audits or challenges you and finds your figures are unfounded.

Finally be aware that some charities use a donated car or vehicle for transportation or for hauling and they benefit directly from the donation. But in most cases the vehicles or cars are sold by the charity, dealer or car donation center to help raise funds for the charitable organization. When this happens, if it’s the dealer, the charity may get only a flat fee and may be as little as $50 for your used car. So check with the charity on how they intend to handle the donation if this is important to you.

These are some of the best charity car donation tips you can put to use immediately if you’re considering donating a car, truck or other vehicle to a charitable car donation program.

For more tips on choosing the best charity car donation, car donation program, used car donation or charitable car donation online and offline go to http://www.Car-Donation-Info.com for charity and tax deduction tips, help, facts, reviews, including information on all types of car donation

Who must may self-employment tax and why? Well, if you’re self-employed, you will be responsible for self-employment tax. How do you determine your liability? For the purpose of determining self-employment tax, you are self-employed if you are a sole proprietor, an independent contractor, a member of a partnership, or are otherwise in business for yourself.

If you are a self-employed individual, you will have a Schedule C to attach to your Form 1040, and self-employment tax is computed on Form 1040, Schedule SE. Individuals must pay self-employment tax is they have net earnings of $400 or more and there are several sources of net earnings that are used when figuring your self-employment tax liability.

In most cases, net earnings include net profit from a farm or nonfarm business; if you operate more than one business, your net earnings from self-employment are the combined net earnings from all your businesses. The upside to operating more than one business: If you have a loss in one business, it reduces the income from another. Self-employment tax is the self-employed individual’s contribution to social security and Medicare taxes; the old-age taxes of employment. The only difference between the employee and the self-employed is the employee’s social security and Medicare taxes are paid half by the employee and half by the employer, when an individual is self-employed; he/she is responsible for the entire amount.

There are alternative methods that can be used for figuring liability of self-employment tax and they are: The Farm Optional Method and the Nonfarm Optional Method. These methods may qualify an individual to claim a larger Earned Income Credit or Child Tax Credit; they may also, however, increase your self-employment tax liability.

The maximum amount of earnings subject to self-employment tax is currently $87,000.00. Now, when figuring your adjusted gross income on Form 1040, you may deduct up to one-half of your self-employment tax liability and if you are member of the ministry or clergy you may request an exemption from self-employment tax from the IRS.

When must self-employment taxes be paid? Generally, the self-employment taxes aren’t due until the end of the year, when your personal tax return is filed. Why is it this way? The self-employment tax isn’t due until the end of the year simply because of the fact that many self-employed business owners don’t file the net profit or net loss figures on their self-employment earnings, until the year’s end. If there is a net loss, the self-employed individual receives a credit of self-employment tax due, in the amount of one-half of the amount due.

The self-employment tax is the self-employed individual’s equivalent to the social security and Medicare tax deducted from employee’s pay check each week. The wage earner’s taxes are configured by their employer and are deducted on a weekly basis. The self-employed individual isn’t required to make weekly payments of self-employment tax, but they are held liable for the full 15.3 rate, that is split between the employee and the employer in wage earning situations. In general, however, if you expect to owe taxes in excess of $1000 for the year, you are required to pay estimated taxes each quarter.

In summary, if you are self-employed, have net earnings of $400 or more, and file a tax return, you will be subject to self-employment tax. To learn more about individual liabilities, exemptions, and alternative tax methods, please visit the online site for IRS Forms and Publications at the IRS website. Topic 554, Publication 517 and 533 will provide more detailed and situation specific information.

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs

For more information and resource links on tax services visit: Tax Services

This is a topic almost everyone you speak those words to, would like to avoid. No one wants to experience an audit first hand; however, tax audits do not have to be the ‘monsters’ we’ve made them out to be. There are audits for personal returns, corporate returns, and small business returns. Until recently, an understaffed IRS found it difficult to conduct a large quantity of audits. But now, be warned, their staff have increased, and so too will the audits.

What should you do to prepare and maintain your records, should you be chosen for an audit? Here’s a little advice from the Internal Revenue Service.
Well, to understand the ‘real world’ proportion of audits that are conducted, consider this: the IRS conducting only .79% of small firms during 2004; so, even though efforts have been stepped up, the percentage is still going to be small.

Some of the more obvious items on your return that will peak the curiosity of the Internal Revenue are travel and entertainment expenses, depreciation, tax credits, charitable expenses, shipping expenses, and sales and returns. As a general rule, these are some of the expenses that are normally recorded in erroneously, or with false figures.

There are ‘licensing and other fees’, another area of concern for the IRS that will flag audit personnel’s interest. The big one right now, seems to be the internet search fees, and other internet related items, that are difficult to document, except via credit card records, and usually these are personal credit card records. Make sure that any information that relates to such a charge is carefully kept and matched to the correct credit card statement.

Advertising costs is another area for scrutiny. It has ties to the internet, also. But advertising expenses are often just that, expensive; there is room for error in record-keeping with advertising and exactly what constitutes advertising.

There are also percentages that alert the Internal Revenue and generate an interest when the variance from the national average is vastly different. Make sure if you have areas where the expenses where somewhat out of the norm, you document the reasons, and log expenses in the right category.

There are guides available from the IRS that are published to help industries and small businesses assure themselves they’re following IRS regulations and common trouble spots. Why does the IRS furnish these guides? Because it’s much better for you to correctly complete your tax return, and pay the tax due without auditing, than it is to perform and audit to correctly assess any tax due.

These guides are known as Audit Technique Guides and they’re available from the IRS, free of charge. They provide you with your industry standards, the most common mistakes made by these industries in their record keeping and tax reporting. These guides were developed by the IRS in order to train audit specialists about particular segments of business, so that when an audit was conducted, the auditor was knowledgeable in that particular field. So far, the training has proved invaluable, and the program is working, to the benefit of the business owners and the IRS, alike.

As with any segment of business, individual return, or corporate operation, your best defence is a good offense. If you’ve taken the time to keep adequate records, maintained good accounting practices with your records, and sought the services of a qualified tax specialist, you have nothing to worry about. The IRS doesn’t really deserve the ‘bad’ image they’ve been given. Their job is just like that of any other regulatory agency; they have laws and policies that must be enforced, they are the entity responsible for enforcing them.

The people to be feared are the policy makers in Washington that are slowly regulating businesses and individuals into over taxation. Today, corporate America pays fewer taxes than ever before. Post WWII figures, indicated a close balance between individual tax liability and corporate tax liability, today the percentages are closer to 4 to 1 (80% of the tax is paid by individuals and small businesses). The really dangerous organization would be the body of government that is deciding the regulations, not the organization enforcing them.

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs

For more information and resource links on tax services visit: Tax Services

First it was petrol prices, then it was bread and now tax rates have increased too. Since April 2008 the basic rate of income tax has increased by 100% to 20 pence in the pound. There are a number of ways to reduce your tax bill taking advantage of your allowances and entitlements, which most people are not aware of.

Income Tax
All UK citizens are entitled to a tax free allowance. In 2008/2009 this allowance amounts to 5,435 pounds. This is the sum that you can earn before any tax is due to the Inland Revenue. Many people who are married, fail to make use of their personal allowances and needlessly pay too much tax. Take the following example: Wendy and Fred are married. Fred goes to work everyday as a policeman and earns 30,000 pounds a year. Wendy and Fred have a joint savings account which earns 1000 pounds of interest each year. As a rseult of the account being in both their names, tax is due on Fred’s 500 pound share. Wendy should have opened the account in her name, all the interest that was earned would have been tax free as she does not work saving over 100 pounds in tax.

Capital Gains Tax
Like Income tax, individuals also have a capital gains tax allowance each year, which currently stands at 9,600 pounds. The government allows that shares or property that have increased in value and have resulted in a capital gain can be transfered between partners, allowing both allowances to be used to total 19200 pounds. Another important factor that should be considered with recent stock market falls is that capital losses can be carried forward and offset against future gains. The key is to prepare and think ahead.

Inheritance Tax
Levied on the estate of a deceased person inheritance tax is often the most hated, but with enough preparation most people will never need to pay it. The transfer of assets between husband and wife is exempt from Inheritance tax purposes and as a result allowances of 325000 pounds per person are often wasted. Couples often prepare for this by writing in their will that on the death of the first person, 325000 of their assets are based on to their children, allowing for a total inheritance exemption of 650000. Another alternative is to gift items to your children while you are still alive. Assuming you survive for 7 years, these gifts will not require inheritance tax to be paid.

Home Businesses
If you have started a business from home you might be missing out on a number of tax expense entitlements. If you run your busienss from a section of your house you are able to recoup a share of the cost of expenses that you might pay such as eletrcity, phone calls and rent against any income that the business generates. The easiest way to claim any of these expenses is via your self assessment tax return which can be requested from your local tax office. The proportion on which you can claim is worked out based on the total number of rooms used for your business divided by the total number of rooms in the house.

The information above is for general knowledge and does not constitute tax advice or help. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Always remember to get independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.

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