AZig Bookkeeping & Business Solutions LLC

I received this email this morning from a client. My client did not send this to me. The client’s email was hacked. You may wonder what made it obvious to me. First, the client had already submitted documents via the portal. The client has never sent info in this manner before & I couldn’t see a reason that the client would send me a document that was too big to attach to an email. I only do a fairly simpke tax return for this client.

This is why I have moved to a secure portal for clients to submit tax & bookkeeping documents. I ask my clients not to email anything with social security numbers, bank account info or any other sensitive information included or attached. I’m still amazed at how many people email me sensitive information even AFTER I have told them not to because it isn’t secure.

Have you heard about the new USPS postmark rules? Link in comments.

Have you written down your end of year odometer reading(s) and/or done that
inventory count yet?

Here’s a great article about why spending money JUST to save on taxes isn’t recommended, contrary to what most people believe.

https://www.bus-ex.com/article/finance-taxes-0?fbclid=IwAR1fqR5mxviMzD2wfAn0NJroByrAwWYce1XrTAthE8PHf80w8GlzHq4ErUM

Finance: Taxes | Bus Ex Every business owner knows the drill; we made a profit this year so we need to spend our cash to save on taxes. I want to challenge you to think differently this year to save cash not save taxes.

If you know any small business owners that are using QuickBooks Desktop, please share this with them.

https://www.firmofthefuture.com/product-update/faq-desktop-stopsell/?cid=DR_EM-ELM6403-001-Text2-NewMerchantIDTRON-NA-NA-CN-TRANS-NA-US-QBDT&fbclid=IwAR3qVIZXUEetqbA3a38uKUoPBtAfiE8g2E3eK_QlEscigoQXBrFxUXsNxjU

QuickBooks Desktop to stop selling to new U.S. subscribers - article QuickBooks Desktop is planning to stop selling several products to U.S. new subscribers after July 31, 2024. Here are some top questions you may have regarding this change.

This is good news. Hopefully it actually happens on the timeline that they're saying.

IRS Unveils Timetable for Completely Paperless Filing by 2025 The IRS has constructed a blueprint for its future called the Paperless Processing Initiative. This plan cuts back on paper filing with the purpose of decreasing the number of printed documents it needs to process each year and speeds up tax refunds. Our latest blog post describes these intended cha...

https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/small-businesses-and-the-corporate-transparency-act

Small businesses and the Corporate Transparency Act CT Corporation looks into how small businesses are affected by Corporate Transparency Act and Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting.

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-announces-delay-for-implementation-of-600-reporting-threshold-for-third-party-payment-platforms-forms-1099-k?utm_campaign=TaxByte%20Delayed%20Reporting%20Threshold%20%2801GN0CH03MCNW0N6NQBZBWD9WX%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=All%20Active%20Profiles%20%28Not%20Suppressed%29&_kx=RrPMD9QPSypVWsovQUxkLgKfg-9hHJErMwmhv5JDNwo%3D.XjYT2a

IRS announces delay for implementation of $600 reporting threshold for third-party payment platforms’ Forms 1099-K | Internal Revenue Service IR-2022-226, December 23, 2022 — The Internal Revenue Service today announced a delay in reporting thresholds for third-party settlement organizations set to take effect for the upcoming tax filing season.

The first wrinkle for the 2022 tax year: The IRS increased the mileage rate effective 7/1/22. This means that there will be two different reimbursement rates for 2022. Taxpayers will need to provide their tax preparer with the number of miles driven from 1/1/22 to 6/30/22 AND 7/1/22 to 12/31/22 separately. If a taxpayer does a mileage log (as they're supposed to), this won't be an issue BUT I know this will be an issue come tax prep time.

IRS increases mileage rate for remainder of 2022 | Internal Revenue Service IR-2022-124, June 9, 2022 — The Internal Revenue Service today announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rate for the final 6 months of 2022. Taxpayers may use the optional standard mileage rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business and certain oth...

Here’s new hacking scheme that I saw posted in a tax group I’m in. “Disgusting thieves tried to hack our firm with an extremely elaborate phasing scheme.
It's the typical email with file attachments amd someone asking for a quote. But, this one was different. It had a phone # that worked and a website set up. I call the # and a person answers.
The person knows all about the type of business. I scrub the attached pdf and it's clean. Open it and it's a tax return matching the name and website. There's also an excel document.
We never open excel documents from non-clients. They are known to have virus' in macros. I tell the person on the phone they have to print the excel file to a pdf for us to look at it. Person hangs up on me.
Feeling something is up, I call the preparer on the return. Sure enough he was hacked. Secretary opened the excel file attachment, ran the macro and the macro ran a key longer. Boom! All of his returns were printed to pdfs and stolen. At least 50 clients had fake returns exiled.
Never, ever, never open an access file or excel file from someone you don't know. This scheme is incredibly elaborate, with a phone # as someone who answers as the taxpayer and a website.
Be viligent”