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Welcome to the Alcorn & Cureton, Ltd Web Site

It's Tax Season! The happiest Time of the Year!

While our official office hours are 8am-5pm there is usually someone here until 8pm if you are dropping info by.

Due to sheer volume of emails and calls, we may not get back to you immediately. We try to get back in touch within 24 hours.  

We welcome back for Tax Season John Pless and Brian Reynolds. They worked wtih us in the past and we are glad they are on board for this tax season.

They are helping us with Eric Cureton's retirement. We started Alcorn & Cureton back in 1982 as a successor to Neel & Alcorn and Richard Neel & Co. It's been a great ride!

Receive a 1099-K?  Make sure you provide us with a copy of it. While the Feds just raised the filing threshold back to $20,000, the states of VA and MD require the 1099-K filing at $600.  A 1099-K is a reporting form that payment processors such as PayPal issue to businesses. 

New law regading Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). The starting age is now age 73. Once you hit that, you have to take distributions.

Avoid ERC fraud. The ERC tax credit is a wonderful tax credit that many businesses can benefit from. But, there are a lot of scam companies offering to claim the ERC for you, taking a percentage of the take, even if you do not qualify. They also fail to mention the amended income tax returns that have to be filed. Do not engage the services of these companies without talking to us first. YOU are liable for any false claims, not the outside company.

Partnerships and S Corporations can pay their VA income tax thru the entity (PTET). The payment link is:

https://www.business.tax.virginia.gov/tax-eforms/ptetpmt.php#

Going Green? The rules for energy credits on your house or the purchase of an EV have changed dramatically. It takes about 20 pages to cover the new rules. Check them out at the IRS website (IRS.gov). For the purchase of an EV, there are rules for the second half of 2022 and more rules for 2023. Full details and VIN lookup are at:

https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/electric-vehicles-for-tax-credit

Strange check in your mailbox? Virginia and several other states are mailing out tax rebates.  VA is $250 per person. If you get a check from the state or from the feds, make a copy and send it to us. Feds will be refunding some past penalties (see below).

It is our 41st year!  Thank you all for letting us be a part of your lives over all these years.  We appreciate our clients.

NOTE TO OUR FILE SHARE USERS- effective Nov 12th the File Share accounts all will have to have the 2 step verification process to log in. Make sure you have your current cell phone number in the system so that you can receive the text message.

Improve your Cash Flow without increasing your taxes. In your regular investment accounts, if you are having your dividends reinvested and are selling stock or pulling money out of retirement plans for cash flow, change your dividends to be paid directly to you. You are already paying taxes on them, and you can reduce the need to sell stock or take retirement distributions. We effectively used dividend reinvestment to build up our accounts over the years, but now might be the time to have those dividends paid directly to you.

Speaking of good investments, please look at US Govt iBonds.  Paying over 6% interest. Limit of $10,000 purchase a year, but you can squeeze another $5,000 worth if you have your federal tax refund used to purchase. 

We now have a billing portal that will allow you to pay your bill via credit card or ACH debit. If your email address is set up in our billing system, you can click on the link below and set yourself up. This is for payment only. To upload documents please use the file share box at the bottom of this page.

secureportal.mangobilling.com/#/login?CCID=1288&CName=Alcorn%20%26%20Cureton%2C%20Ltd.

For 2022 and you are age 73 or greater, you have to take a Required Minimum Distribution from your IRA and retirement accounts.  But we have a new RMD table for 2022 and thereafter that was issued by the IRS that slightly decreases the amounts that have to be taken as compared to the previous tables.  

Are you age 70 1/2 or more?  The good news is that, if you have earned income, you can now contribute to your IRA.  There is no maximum age limit on IRA contributions now, but you do have to have earned income (employment or income subject to SE tax) to make the contribution.  But IRA  contributions can affect your QCD (Qualified Charitable Distribution) deduction. 

We love QCDs and highly recommend those over age 70 1/2 to use them for your charitable gifting. And we love IRA contributions.  But the two don't mix well.  To the extent that you make a post 70 1/2 IRA contribution of, say $5,000 and you did QCDs of $7,500, your allowable QCD deduction would be $2,500 (the $7,500 QCD made less the IRA contribution of $5,000).

Effective 1 July 2021 Virginia requires almost all individual income tax payments to be electronic. Any estimated payment over $2,500 is to be paid electronically which can be done easily on their website:

https://www.business.tax.virginia.gov/tax-eforms/760es.php#

We can set your tax payments to be made electronically when we do your tax returns. Just make sure we have your up to date bank information. 

Tax Laws are changing. Please take a look at your Estate planning and make sure it is up to date.  Do you have a Revocable Living Trust that is current?  A current Medical Directive? These are all important to have to to keep up to date.  Let us know if you have any questions.

Have huge capital gains?  You have up to 180 days to completely shelter those gains using an investment in a Qualified Opportunity Zone.  Ask us about QOZs.

Use our secure portal to upload your data and documents to us. It's safe (fully encrypted) and easy.  Click on the File Share box at the bottom of this page.

The Federal Estate Tax exclusion jumps to over $12 million a person. But some states, such as Maryland and DC still have much lower thresholds for when the estate tax starts.  The annual gift tax exclusion amount is $16,000. 

You can upload your investment information directly into your tax return by using our Intuit Link system.  Let us know that you want to have your interest, dividends and stock sales imported directly in, and we will send you an invite to register with Intuit and select the accounts you want to upload. 

Starting a business?  We can help. Generally we recommend that most businesses start as an LLC (Limited Liability Company). If there is only one owner, it will be a single member LLC and the income and expenses will just be reported on the owner's tax returns.  If there is more than one owner, the LLC will be taxed as a partnership and will file a partnership income tax return.  The entity itself does not pay income taxes, in that the income flows through to the owners on their tax returns. 

The LLC form of business helps protect you from legal liability if done correctly.  Most businesses can benefit from that, especially high risk activities such as real estate (rentals, construction and flipping), restaurants and services.

LLCs generally have to register with the State and you want to obtain a Federal Employer ID number (EIN) from the IRS.  That way you do not need to use your Social Security Number.

The IRS does NOT call you to say they are suing you, taking you to court or demanding you make a payment to them today.  These are scams. The IRS warns that there are now scam IRS CP-2000 notices (tax adjustments) being emailed out. The IRS also does NOT send out emails regarding a tax refunds or rebates or request that you set up a PIN number in order to get your refund. These are phishing schemes and phone scams, and you should not respond to them and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER click on a link from one of those emails. Never make a payment to the I.R.S., in that all payments to the government are paid to the U.S. Treasury.  If your notice or call says anything different, it is fake. PLEASE REPORT THESE TO http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml 

Setting up a 529 Plan for your kids or grandchildren?  While there is not a Federal tax deduction, there are state tax deductions available if set up with your state of residence or its approved plan.  You can maximize your state tax deductions by splitting the accounts between husband and wife (Virginia) or by the different type of plans (Maryland). 

Virginia Employers, including individuals with rental properties, must file a BPOL license with their county or city by March 1.  Landlords with properties in DC must file a Franchise Tax return. Every jurisdiction has its own rules on this. Fairfax County requires a business license if you rent three or more residential properties or one commercial property.

Get a heads up on the new laws-subscribe to our NEWSLETTER.  Our monthly newsletter will be emailed to you each and every month.  Click on the Subscribe button at the bottom of the page. This is a free client service that we want you to take advantage of.  There are always a lot of good tax planning ideas in each monthly newsletter.

Thinking about using a Tax Relief company to reduce your balance due to the IRS? Check out the news article, in Links on the top menu line, then in News.

Are you maximizing your retirement plan deductions? Is all of your estate planning (wills, trusts and medical directives) up to date? Please make sure that we have the current version of your Will and Trust documents. 

We have many calculators in our FINANCIAL TOOLS section (tab above) including a full 1040 tax calculator, estate planning and mortgage loan calculators, including refinance savings computations and amortization schedules. There are so many powerful calculators; you will be able to calculate things that you never thought existed!

Driving directions to our office can be found in the CONTACTS section.

In addition to providing you with a profile of our firm and the services we provide, this Website has been designed to become a helpful resource tool to you, our valued clients and visitors. Our dedication to superior client service has brought us to the Internet as we endeavor to continue to provide the highest quality professional service and guidance.

As you browse through our Website, you will see that not only have we highlighted background information on our firm and the services we provide, but have also included useful resources such as informative articles (in our Newsletter section) and interactive financial calculators (in our Financial Tools section). Check out the nifty refinancing calculators to determine if you should refinance now, and how much it may save you.

In addition, we have taken the time to gather many links to external Websites that we felt would be of interest to our clients and visitors (in our Internet Links section).

While browsing through our Website, please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you may have - we'd love to hear from you. We pride ourselves on being proactive and responsive to our clients' inquiries and suggestions.

If you are uploading your QuickBooks file, we suggest that you send a Portable Copy (.QBM) in that it is smaller and contains less data than a regular Backup file (.QBB). It also does not contain your sensitive customer data. Please note that you also need to send us your current QB password.