Schlabig Certified Public Accountants Blog

3 Areas of Fraud-Proofing to Focus on For Construction

Robert Engler — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:06:38 +0000

As the economy continues to challenge everyone, the motivation for some employees to steal isn’t hard to understand. Although the term “fraud-proof” may be a bit hyperbolic, it doesn’t hurt to shoot for the stars when trying to safeguard your revenue and assets. One way to divide and potentially conquer fraudsters is to focus on [...]

10 Tips For Keeping Volunteers

Brad Sackella — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:40:20 +0000

It’s easy to take your volunteers for granted — until they quit. Now, more than ever, short-staffed nonprofits rely on volunteer labor to pick up the slack. To help ensure you’re doing everything you can to engage and retain unpaid workers for the long term, consider the following 10 tips: 1. Build a program. [...]

How Secure is Your Password?

Kelly Nizzer Bates — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:28:36 +0000

Everyone knows it's bad to use the same password for different sites. But we do it anyway because remembering different passwords is annoying. Remembering different, difficult passwords is even more bothersome! Generally, we choose a readable word as a base for the password. Then, when pressed to, we add a numeral or symbol to make [...]

What You Should Know About Social Security

Tom Hager — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:56:29 +0000

About 150 million people contribute and 55 million collect Average monthly benefit: retired worker = $1,200; retired couple = $1,900 Social Security benefits are calculated using the highest 35 years of earnings 62 is the earliest you can receive benefits–most people start at 62 and 95% start by 66 Every month you delay after full [...]

Avoiding a Tax Audit

Debbie Petrone — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:30:53 +0000

Even though the Internal Revenue Service likes to present a “kinder, friendlier” image to the public, you better believe that they are not slacking off in the collection of taxes. After all, their job is to raise money for the federal government. IRS staff has actually decreased, but more sophisticated computer programs cross check items [...]

Extra Retirement Income From a Past Divorce

Les Smeach — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:14:36 +0000

Times are tough out there and here is some advice that you may have forgotten about or didn’t know. A person can collect Social Security benefits based on his/her own earnings history, or 50% of his/her former spouse’s benefit if it is greater than his/her own, or 100% if the former spouse is deceased. In [...]

More Time to Prepare or to Procrastinate?

Sharon Sledzik — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:14:32 +0000

The IRS has officially announced that the tax deadline for 2011 individual tax returns is Tuesday, April 17, 2012. The usual deadline of April 15 is on Sunday, and the 16th is Emancipation Day, an observed holiday in the District of Columbia. 2012 is also a leap year where February has 29 days in order [...]

‘Tis the Season to Give!

Sharon Sledzik — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:49:21 +0000

Holidays are coming, and at year end many of us are considering making gifts and charitable donations. Only those gifts to non-profit organizations classified as 501(c)3 qualify for a tax deduction. IRS Publication 78 is a list of organizations that qualify, and GuideStar is a website that gathers information on nonprofits. These sources should be [...]

Group-Term Life Insurance

Kelly Nizzer Bates — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:03:50 +0000

Many employers offer company-paid group-term life insurance to team members. There are no tax consequences if the total amount of such policies does not exceed $50,000. However, coverage in excess of $50,000 must be included in income, using the IRS premium table. The calculated amount is then subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes. Figure [...]

What to Do When the DOL Calls

Tom Hager — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:20:09 +0000

Over the past couple of months we have had several clients who have received phone calls from the DOL (Department of Labor). That may not seem like an important event, but during my many years in this business, I can only remember one such phone call received by a client. Wage and hour audits are [...]