Top 5 most interesting facts from ACFE 2018 Report to the Nation

Every two years the Association of Certified Fraud Examiner releases a study on fraud in their Report to the Nation. The 2018 report was recently released and I found the following facts to be very interesting. Over $7 billion in total losses. This number continues to increase.   A majority of the victims recovered nothing. It’s best to make sure you’re not a victim in the first place.   Small businesses (fewer than 100 employees) lost almost twice as much per scheme to fraud. I suppose this has to do with the lack of internal controls at smaller organizations. Also,…

Non-Profit Organizations Need to Make a Profit?

I come across a lot of people who think non-profits (NPO) don’t need to make money. In fact, it’s called “non-profit” because it’s not supposed to make a profit. Right? Wrong. A NPO needs to make money and even show a “profit”. What is profit? Profit is when revenues/support exceed expenses. We use a different terminology when working with a NPO. The word non-“profit” refers to the purpose of the organization, not to their positive cash flow.  We don’t say they make a “profit”. We usually refer to revenue/support over expenses as an increase in net assets. IRS doesn’t even…

How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Could Affect Not-For-Profit Organizations

Not-for-profit organizations may not be the first thing that comes to mind when reviewing the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. However, this major tax reform significantly changes how taxes are assessed for corporations, pass-through entities, and individuals. These entities are a core component of a not-for-profit organization’s donor base, and what financially affects donors will financially affect not-for-profit organizations. According to Charity Navigator, 72% of charitable giving in 2016 came from individuals. With this in mind, it important to note the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act just about doubled the standard deduction (increasing from $12,700…

Are You Required to File the Form 8938?

We get a lot of inquiries about the Form 8938. The Form 8938 is used to report overseas financial assets over a certain threshold. The threshold amount varies by type of person. For 2017, here are the filing requirements: Unmarried taxpayers living inside the United States with financial assets outside of the United States that are more than $50,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $75,000 at any point during the tax year are required to file the Form 8938. The amounts for married taxpayers filing a joint income tax return who are required to…

Winners & Losers under the New Tax Act

We are racing towards the tax season finish line like the US Bobsled team in China (hopefully a bit faster), and now that we have seen a large volume of tax returns it is interesting to see what our initial projections are for who is most affected by the 2018 Tax Act. As a courtesy we calculate what our client’s 2017 tax profiles would look like under the 2018 rules, and the results can be generalized: If you don’t itemize (think: renters) and your combined income(s) are around $50k or below, you probably come out ahead. If your combined incomes...