Lower price on Money Management ebook

Start 2012 off right for your homeschool group!

Get your homeschool group’s finances organized!

I have lowered the price for Money Management for Homeschool organizations from $10.00 to $3.99.

This 39 page ebook covers money management for small, medium and large sized groups. Sample forms and examples of financial statements in clear English are provided. Also covered are topics such as using Quickbooks, collecting fees, creating a budget, insurance, and hiring paid teachers. All written specifically for homeschool groups.

Click here to read a sample and to purchase

Happy New Year 2012!

Carol Topp, CPA

An alternative to individual fundraising accounts

Hi Carol,
Fund raising is really on my heart right now. Most of our group operational expenses are covered by membership fees and activity fees, right now.  Probably the biggest need is for families who can’t afford class tuition or activity fees.

We want to be able to reduce the expenses overall, but also help these homeschooling families who are on very tight budgets.  I would like to have fund raisers during the year that families can participate in and know that if they work very hard the funds they raise can be applied to their own fees.

My sister used fund raisers through her high school band program to raise money for her own trip to an out-of-state band conference.  Some parents just wrote a check and their kids didn’t have to work the fund raiser, while others (like my sister) needed the help and worked hard for it.  How can this idea apply to our fund raisers?

Our treasurer is concerned about crossing the line and breaking the rules about fund raising with the IRS.  We don’t want to do that.  I just don’t want money to be a barrier for some great kids.

Angela

IRS pushes to reclassify independent contractors as employees

A recent article at CFO.com discusses the new regulations the IRS and several sates have passed to push employers to  reclassify independent contractors as employees.

 

A Loss of Independents?

Regulators have rewritten the rules regarding the use of independent contractors, forcing companies to make hard choices — and possibly pay heavy fines.

by David M. Katz

As companies make greater use of independent contractors, the Internal Revenue Service is pushing to get many of those self-employed workers reclassified as employees.

For many companies, particularly small and midsize firms, the ability to classify certain workers as independent contractors provides what they regard as essential flexibility.

If such reclassification were widely enforced, companies would have to start withholding federal income, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes from freelancers’ wages — not to mention possible payment of fees and penalties for previous misclassifications. Further, such firms would have to start paying for the same employee benefits and workers’ compensation that they currently do for full-time employees.

Carrot and Stick
How likely is it that such a scenario would occur on a broad scale? Not very — especially because the IRS, the Department of Labor, and the states themselves don’t have the staff needed to provide such enforcement. Yet even as the economy grows more reliant on temporary labor, regulators are becoming increasingly vigilant about getting employers to classify previously mislabeled workers.

The IRS, for example, has lately been wielding both carrot and stick. This fall the service introduced a voluntary program that might enable some employers to shed certain tax liabilities by dubbing certain independent contractors as employees. But that program came on the heels of a year-and-a-half-long crackdown by IRS agents on potential misclassifications, according to Kathy Mort, a managing director in PwC’s Washington, D.C., national tax services office.

Faced with burgeoning federal and state budget deficits, regulators see a vast pool of potential back taxes, fees, and penalties to be gleaned from the detection of employee-classification errors. Currently, the IRS estimates that 15% of all employers have misclassified a total of 3.4 million employees as independent contractors, resulting in an estimated annual revenue loss of $3.4 billion in 2010 dollars.

While many companies err on the side of caution and forgo the use of independent contractors, for those employers “that have [long assumed] that a large group of contractors is not going to be looked at, there’s a more significant risk than there ever was that someone — the DoL, the IRS, or state agencies — is going to look at them,” Mort says.

In September, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis seemed to ratchet up that risk when she hosted a ceremony in Washington to sign a memorandum of understanding with the IRS and representatives of seven states “to end the business practice of misclassifying employees in order to avoid providing employment protections.” (The states are Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Utah, and Washington.)

 

Red the full article here.

 

What should your homeschol organizations do?

• Read my blog posts on hiring workers here.
• Buy my ebook Paying Workers in a Homeschool Organization. Only $3.oo
• Discuss this issue with your board and take proper action to be legal.

 

Carol Topp, CPA

 

Should your homeschool group be an LLC?

Limited Liability Company (or LLC) is a relatively new type of business structure. Several homeschool leaders have been asking if its something their homeschool group should consider.

In particular, many homeschool groups wonder if they should file for LLC status as part of becoming a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.

Caution:  I am not an attorney, nor am I offering legal advice.  I will relay what I have leaned about LLC’s filing for 501c3 tax exemption from the IRS, but I am not offering a legal opinion. I recommend that you seek legal counsel if you pursue either option.

Only recently has the IRS granted 501c3 tax exempt status to LLCs. LLCs are a relatively new business structure (only available in all 50 states in the mid 1980′s) and the IRS is slow to accept changes. In a document titled “Limited Liability Companies as Exempt Organizations-Update” (2001 Exempt Organization CPE Text. Available at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopicb01.pdf ) the IRS outlined 12 conditions that an LLC must satisfy to qualify for exemption under IRC (Internal Revenue Code) 501c3.

These conditions are legally complex and I would strongly recommend that you seek experienced legal counsel before organizing a nonprofit LLC.

I read an article titled “Nonprofit LLCs: Time for a New Experiment” (http://www.mayer-riser.com/Articles/nonprofit/npllc.htm) and the author, a nonprofit attorney, advises:

Until state legislatures address the unresolved issues, the actual use of the LLC form by nonprofit organizations should be undertaken only after careful review of current law in the applicable jurisdictions, and only with the assistance of qualified counsel with experience in drafting complex and detailed operating agreements and experience in the law of tax-exempt organizations.

Unfortunately, at the time of the article in 2002, only 11 organizations had obtained 501c3 status as LLCs, so experienced assistance may be difficult to find.

The reason that most businesses use the LLC structure is for limited liability. I organized my own sole proprietorship accounting practice as an LLC  because I wanted limited liability and protection of my personal assets. For a nonprofit organization, such as most homeschool groups, nonprofit corporation status in your state brings similar protections of limited liability. If your main reason for seeking LLC structure is for limited liability, nonprofit incorporation in your state is the easier option.

Carol Topp, CPA

I am not an attorney, nor am I offering legal advice. I recommend that you seek legal counsel if you have additional questions or pursue Limited Liability Company status.

Unplug the Christmas machine

 

About 18 years ago, I read Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Staeheli.

It changed the way I see and celebrate Christmas.

 

I created a mini ebook to share what I learned about having a happier, debt free Christmas.

Carol Topp’s Plan for a Debt Free Christmas (click to download)

I include tips, a funny poem and a recipe that eliminates holiday baking.

• Give yourself permission to break old habits and discover new traditions.
• Eliminate or greatly reduce Christmas baking. This will save time, money and gym fees in January! I quit baking
  Christmas cookies several years ago. I now bake a less fattening Christmas bread from my grandmother’s native country of Finland called pulla (recipe in the ebook). I will bake cookies only if I know they will be given to someone else or taken to a party within one day of baking. I keep less than one dozen for my family.
• Don’t kid yourself that homemade cards or gifts are less expensive. They cost in time, frustration, supplies, etc.

I hope you enjoy the mini ebook Carol Topp’s Plan For A Debt-Free Christmas.

 

Merry Christmas!

Carol Topp, CPA

 

Freebies at The Teacher’s Toolbox

 

 

This month I am the featured contributor for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s  Teacher’s  Toolbox.

Teacher’s Toolbox is the member site for subscribers to The Old Schoolhouse(TOS)

• Tons of FREE educational resources at your fingertips!
• Privileged, subscriber only, FREE access to flip through every DIGITAL TOS back issues ever created!
• Monthly history calendars with activities and lessons for each day!
• Delicious recipes your family will crave!
• Free eBooks, crafts, printable worksheets, unit studies, webquests and so much more!

In December you can receive a free ebook on starting a micro business and an article on entrepreneurship (and menus, printables,  & more!).

 

If you’re a subscriber, it’s all free for you.

If not, subscribe today! http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/teachers_toolbox/