New Small Business Tax School - New Matchmaking Connection!
Today I’m talking about 2 new big things we’ve created to grow our impact and network. Connection Requests and Small Business Tax School.
With tax season approaching, we’ve been busy planning and working on how to make things better for us inside the office but also for our clients. And we’ve been realizing that we just can’t service everyone who needs a tax preparer. We have to focus.
With that giant realization, we’ve created two new things to help us answer your questions, provide better service, and connect people to legit, trusted pros, even if we can’t serve them ourselves.
Small Business Tax School is our new free community, where we’ll post all of our resources, worksheets, checklists, interviews, expert interviews, and business consulting and coaching. When we answer a question, we’ll share it here so that when one learns, all learn. This will help us serve more people faster by being more available in one specific place. It’s impossible to be in all the places simultaneously, and it’s hard only to help one person per hour when you know more people need you and you have a pile of work to do on the desk behind you…… So hop in and get in on the ground floor. It will grow and expand based on what you community wants, so make sure you get your feedback in there.
Our second creation is an offer to connect you with other tax pros and accounting firms who work like us and believe in the power of collaborative and purposeful work. We know we can’t help everyone and are focused on serving our niche because that’s what we do best. But we know many people want to work with someone like us. So we’ve made a quick little form available right here, and when you fill it out, we’ll do the heavy lifting to search our network and then get you a short list of pros who are interested in serving you and are taking new clients just like you. This works for bookkeepers and tax pros alike. So click on our Connection Request and request a Connection!
We hope that these two things can help us serve our clients and community better.
If you are a tax pro or bookkeeper who wants to be considered part of our Connection Network, let us know!
If you hate our new ideas, let me know, too. I’m curious to hear how people think we should deal with the shortage of tax pros, retiring accountants, and an overall deluge of work and demand, especially if you think we’re doing it wrong. I’d like to hear what you’d do. But be careful; we’re hiring, so you may just get asked to join the team.
Email me at stephanie@steinkeandcompany.com
Navigating the New 2021 Child Tax Credit
What you need to know…
The whirlwind of tax changes just keeps going. Now, if you have children 17 or under there is a new, higher child tax credit in place for 2021. Here is what you need to know:
Age matters. The old credit was for children under the age of 17. The new credit goes through age 17 and includes an increased credit for children under the age of 6.
The new credit amount. The child tax credit goes from $2,000 per qualifying child up to $3,000 per child. The amount increases to $3,600 per child if your child is under the age of six.
Fully refundable. You will get the child tax credit even if you do not owe tax. The old rules required $2,500 in minimum earnings and only up to $1,400 of the credit was refundable.
Phaseouts just got a lot more complicated. As with the past child tax credit, you can only receive the credit if your income is below a threshold amount. The $200,000 threshold for unmarried taxpayers and $400,000 threshold for married taxpayers is still in place for the first $2,000 of the 2021 credit. To get the entire $3,000 or $3,600 credit in 2021, your adjusted gross income must be under $75,000 for single taxpayers, $112,500 for head of household taxpayers, and $150,000 for married taxpayers.
New periodic payments. The new child tax credit also allows you to receive monthly payments for 50 percent of the credit from July 2021 through December 2021. There will be a new IRS website to opt-out of receiving monthly payments if you prefer to receive your entire child tax credit when you file your 2021 tax return in 2022. Find the new website here and the dates to opt-out from monthly payments.
Unless noted, the other requirements to receive the child tax credit stay in place. So you must still pass rules for the relationship test and support tests to qualify. As always, should you have questions please feel free to contact us. And remember, this advice is general and not meant to be taken into account without talking to your tax advisor about your own individual circumstances.
Remember folks, never take advice from strangers on the internet! Always talk to your own tax preparer about your specific situation. These posts are meant to educate and inform, and aren't to be taken as actionable advice.