John E. Geantasio CPA

John E. Geantasio CPA The accounting firm of John E. Geantasio CPA, LLC. was established in 1987 to provide efficient, exp
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10/07/2026

Buying business equipment before December 31 does not automatically mean you can deduct it on your 2026 tax return.

The key phrase is: placed in service.

For equipment to potentially qualify for a 2026 deduction, it generally needs to be in use—or ready and available for use in your business—by December 31, 2026.

That distinction matters if you're considering a year-end purchase such as:

• Business vehicles or trucks
• Machinery and equipment
• Computers and technology
• Office equipment
• Other qualifying business assets

Federal tax rules may also provide significant opportunities through **100% bonus depreciation** and Section 179 deductions for qualifying property.

But a tax deduction should not be the only reason you make a major purchase.

Before signing a purchase order, ask:

Does my business actually need this asset—and what will the purchase do to my federal and New Jersey tax situation?

That second question is especially important for New Jersey business owners because **New Jersey does not follow federal bonus depreciation rules in the same way as the federal government.

Year-end equipment purchases should be planned, not rushed.

If you own a business in Spring Lake, Sea Girt, Wall Township, or elsewhere in Monmouth County, NJ, now is the time to run the numbers while there is still time to act before year-end.

📞 Book a year-end tax planning call before you sign the purchase order.

Year-end tax planning for business owners in Spring Lake, NJ — what we actually file in December, and what we delete.Eve...
10/06/2026

Year-end tax planning for business owners in Spring Lake, NJ — what we actually file in December, and what we delete.

Every December the same four ideas arrive in my office. An owner heard them online, acted on them, and now wants to know what they saved him. Usually nothing.

So here is the split.

Four moves we run before December 31:

Owner payroll goes out before the 31st. Wages paid in January do not count for this year, and for an S corporation that one date moves real money.

Equipment has to be in service, not on order. Paid for is not the test. Working and in use is the test. A machine sitting on a loading dock on December 30 is a next-year deduction.

The retirement plan gets opened now and funded in April. The plan has to exist by the 31st. The money does not.

The New Jersey entity tax gets paid inside December, not January. Paid in December, deducted this year. Paid three days later, deducted next year. Same dollars, one year of difference.

Four we refuse to do:

Spend money in December to lower the tax. You spend a dollar to keep about thirty cents. That is not planning, that is shopping.

Buy the heavy SUV and write off the whole thing. Business-use percentage and the vehicle cap decide what you get, and if business use drops later, part of it comes back.

Start an LLC and watch the tax bill fall. An LLC by itself changes nothing on the return.

Prepay next year's bills and deduct them now. Some prepayments qualify. Most do not.

The difference between the two lists is not aggressiveness. It is whether the move survives the return.

If you own a business in Monmouth County and nobody has walked your numbers before December 31, book a no-obligation tax strategy call. We will tell you which of the four applies to you, and which ones do not.

John Geantasio CPA, LLC — Spring Lake, New Jersey. Link in bio.

10/05/2026

Monmouth County business owners: your 2026 tax return may be filed next year, but many of the decisions that shape it need to happen before December 31.

Year-end tax planning is different from simply preparing an accurate tax return.

Before the year closes, business owners should be asking questions such as:

• Does your current business entity still make sense for your profit level?
• If you own an S corporation, is your salary reasonable?
• Is the balance between salary and distributions appropriate for your situation?
• Should equipment, technology, or software be purchased and placed in service before year-end?
• Is your retirement plan structured appropriately for your business?
• Does it make sense to accelerate or defer certain income or expenses between 2026 and 2027?

These decisions can be much harder—or impossible—to change once the calendar turns to January.

That is why November and December are important planning months for business owners.

If you own a business in Spring Lake, Sea Girt, Wall Township, or elsewhere in Monmouth County, NJ, now is the time to review your numbers and identify the planning opportunities that are still available before year-end.

📍 John E. Geantasio, CPA LLC
Spring Lake, New Jersey

Book a business tax planning call before the December rush.

Solo 401(k) or SEP-IRA? The better choice may come down to math, not rules of thumb.If you’re self-employed or own a sol...
09/19/2026

Solo 401(k) or SEP-IRA? The better choice may come down to math, not rules of thumb.
If you’re self-employed or own a solo business, you’ve probably already heard the standard advice:
“SEP-IRAs are simple.”
“Solo 401(k)s can allow larger contributions.”
“Both are great retirement plans for business owners.”
All true in the right situation.
But none of those statements answers the question that actually matters:
Which retirement plan works better at your income?
That requires running the contribution calculation using your compensation, business structure, age, available cash flow, and retirement goals.
Because the same business income can produce two very different planning outcomes.
A Solo 401(k) may allow contributions through more than one contribution component, while a SEP-IRA generally follows a different employer-contribution formula.
That means choosing based only on convenience, contribution limits, or something you read online can miss the bigger picture.
If you’re already earning enough that retirement-plan contributions are part of your tax strategy, stop asking:
“Which plan is better?”
Start asking:
“What does each plan allow me to contribute based on my actual numbers?”
That calculation can help clarify not only retirement savings potential, but also how the plan fits into your broader business and tax strategy.
Before opening another account because someone called it “the best retirement plan for business owners,” run the math first.
Compare your retirement-plan math.
John E. Geantasio CPA LLC
Serving business owners in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Your S-Corp may owe you money — and another “deduction” isn’t necessarily the answer.Many S-corp owners are already dedu...
09/18/2026

Your S-Corp may owe you money — and another “deduction” isn’t necessarily the answer.
Many S-corp owners are already deducting legitimate business expenses. But there’s another question worth asking:
Are you personally paying business expenses that your S-Corp should be reimbursing you for?
Think mileage, business use of your phone or internet, travel, supplies, home-office-related costs, and other qualifying expenses you paid personally.
With a properly structured accountable plan, the process can look like this:
You pay a qualified business expense personally.
You document it properly.
You submit it under the accountable plan.
Your S-Corp reimburses you.
That distinction matters.
A reimbursement under a compliant accountable plan is not simply the same thing as taking another personal tax deduction. When properly documented and structured, it can allow the corporation to reimburse legitimate business expenses without the reimbursement generally being treated as taxable wages to the owner.
If you’ve already worked on reasonable compensation, payroll, retirement contributions, and ordinary S-corporation deductions, but nobody has reviewed your owner reimbursement process, there may still be another layer of your S-corp tax structure worth examining.
The strategy starts with documentation, business purpose, and a properly established process — not simply labeling more expenses “deductible.”
Review your S-Corp tax structure before another year of personally absorbing business costs that may belong to the company.
John E. Geantasio CPA LLC
Serving business owners in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

09/16/2026

If you own an S-corp, your salary should not start with:
“My friend pays himself $60,000.”
Or:
“My accountant said this percentage is probably fine.”
Reasonable compensation is not supposed to be a random number chosen first and defended later.
A stronger approach starts with the work you actually perform.
What is your role in the company?
How many hours do you work?
What responsibilities are you carrying?
What skills and experience does that work require?
What would someone performing comparable work normally earn in the market?
Those questions matter because two S-corp owners with the same revenue can have very different reasonable compensation.
One owner may handle sales, operations, client delivery, management, and strategy.
Another may have a team doing most of that work.
Same revenue does not automatically mean same salary.
At John E. Geantasio CPA LLC, we look at the owner’s duties, time commitment, experience, comparable compensation, and the economics of the business to help build a compensation position supported by actual reasoning.
The objective is not to push your salary as low as possible just to reduce payroll taxes.
It is to arrive at a number that makes sense for the work being performed—and that you can clearly explain if it is ever questioned.
If you’re a New Jersey S-corp owner and your current salary was guessed, copied from someone else, or never properly analyzed, it may be worth reviewing before another tax year passes.
John E. Geantasio CPA LLC
Monmouth County, New Jersey

Do you need a tax preparer, CPA, or Enrolled Agent?The answer depends less on the title—and more on the complexity of yo...
09/16/2026

Do you need a tax preparer, CPA, or Enrolled Agent?
The answer depends less on the title—and more on the complexity of your financial situation.
For a straightforward individual tax return, basic tax preparation may be enough.
But business ownership, multiple income sources, tax-planning needs, entity decisions, investments, retirement strategies, or IRS issues can require a different level of expertise and advisory support.
John E. Geantasio CPA LLC provides tax preparation, tax planning, and CPA advisory services in Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Instead of asking:
“Who can file my taxes?”
Consider asking:
“What level of tax expertise does my situation actually require?”
Tax preparation is one service.
Tax strategy, advisory, business planning, and ongoing tax management are different needs.
If you’re looking for a CPA or tax professional in Monmouth County, NJ, contact John E. Geantasio CPA LLC to discuss your situation.

09/15/2026

If you only talk to your accountant once a year, you’re not really tax planning.
You’re finding out what already happened.
By tax season, your income has already been earned. Your purchases have already been made. Your compensation decisions are largely behind you.
At that point, tax preparation is about accurately reporting the past.
Tax planning asks a different question:
“What can we still change before the year ends?”
That may mean reviewing how you’re paying yourself.
Looking at upcoming business purchases.
Evaluating retirement-plan opportunities.
Projecting business income before December instead of discovering it in March.
And understanding the tax consequences of major financial decisions before you make them.
Not every business owner needs every tax strategy.
Sometimes there may be several worthwhile opportunities to evaluate. Sometimes there may be very little that should change.
The advantage is having that conversation while there is still time to make a deliberate decision.
That’s why at John E. Geantasio CPA LLC, we believe business owners should have regular tax-planning conversations throughout the year—not one surprise meeting during tax season.
The goal isn’t to chase tax “hacks.”
It’s to run your business knowing the tax consequences before the decisions become permanent.
If you’re a business owner in Monmouth County, New Jersey and you’re tired of being surprised by your tax bill, it may be time to move from annual tax preparation to proactive tax planning.

There comes a point when better bookkeeping no longer solves the financial problems of a growing business.The books may ...
09/15/2026

There comes a point when better bookkeeping no longer solves the financial problems of a growing business.
The books may be accurate.
Reports may arrive every month.
Yet you’re still asking:
Can we afford another employee?
Why is cash tight despite strong revenue?
Which service is actually profitable?
How much should we invest in growth?
What happens if sales decline?
At John E. Geantasio CPA LLC, we provide Fractional CFO services for growing businesses in Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Bookkeeping explains what happened.
CFO-level financial management helps you decide what should happen next.
If your business has accurate books but you still lack forecasting, cash-flow visibility, KPI tracking, margin analysis, and financial decision support, your business may have outgrown bookkeeping alone.
Book a Fractional CFO discovery call with John E. Geantasio CPA LLC in Monmouth County, NJ.

09/14/2026

A short-term rental can be part of a tax strategy.
That does not mean you should buy one just to reduce your taxes.
We are seeing more business owners and investors hear versions of the same online claim:
“Buy a $500,000 short-term rental and write the whole thing off in year one.”
That is not how the analysis works.
First, real estate should make sense as an investment before the tax benefits are considered.
If the deal itself is weak, a potential deduction does not suddenly make it a good investment.
Second, land is generally not depreciable.
So the entire purchase price of the property is not automatically available for depreciation.
Then comes cost segregation.
A cost segregation study examines components of the building and identifies property that may qualify for shorter depreciation periods, including certain 5- and 7-year assets.
In our experience working with taxpayers across the United States, that shorter-life property often represents roughly 20%–25% of the building cost—not the entire purchase price.
That distinction can materially change the numbers.
The right question is not:
“How big of a deduction can I get?”
It is:
“Does this property make financial sense, and what tax treatment actually applies to my situation?”
At John E. Geantasio CPA LLC, we help investors look at the investment and the potential tax consequences together before making the decision.
If you are considering an Airbnb, VRBO, vacation rental, or other short-term rental, do the analysis before you buy—not after.
John E. Geantasio CPA LLC
Monmouth County, New Jersey

Address

60 State Route 71
Spring Lake, NJ
07762

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Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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