If the tax money is already set aside, that would be clearing 77.5. Plus, if the business finances are handled like most solo firms I've seen the books of, a bunch of "business" expenses overlap into the personal expense category.
Weren't you saying the other day that you had to write a big tax check? Was that completely covered by the 30% or are you going to up that amount?
this is gonna show how little i know about taxes and business. Does the business pays tax on its earnings and then you pay tax on whatever you pay yourself from the business as well? So the money you bring in effectively gets taxed twice? Or do you just pay the 30-33% on the fees as described above and then you're free to pay yourself tax free? Lets assume its a LLC. If it's the later scenario and you can just withold 30-33% for taxes on everything and then not worry about getting taxed again on the money you pay yourself, well that's a pretty simple and good set up. I just know that here at my firm we pay a payroll tax and the money the business brings it gets taxed at the business level and then whatever they pay me, I get taxed at 30-33% personally on that as well.
So I am set up as a single-person PLLC: Gallant Knight PLLC. Gallant Knight PLLC won't pay any taxes as an entity. I will have to pay taxes on whatever profits are generated from my business, though. I started my firm March 1, 2016. I cleared 130k in fees last year. I am still trying to figure out all of my expenses, but after spending all weekend up here, I think that I will have about 30k in expenses that are related to the firm, so I will have to pay taxes on right around 100k. That will be covered by the ~30k I have set aside in my personal savings account. I was supposed to pay a quarterly estimated payment to the IRS for Q3, but I didn't. So I will owe a penalty on that. I am pretty much just going to pay what I owe by the end of the week, and from what I hear, the IRS will most likely waive the penalty. If not I will owe an extra grand or something. Whatever. RJF-GUMP I asked how much business you brought in last year because that is a pretty important thing to consider if you are planning on hanging a shingle somewhere??? At my old firm in 2015 I brought in about 65 cases. You guys all know I'm hustling up car wrecks, so each case is a client. If there is an accident with one car but it had four passengers I count that as 4 cases. I obviously had a lot more free time to hustle and market this year. From March 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016, I brought in a little over 90 cases. From January 1, 2017 to date I have 7. If yall have any other questions, let me know.
Gallant Knight you may be good to go on the 2210 penalty regardless if you were good on estimates/overpaid for 2015.
2015 taxes filed in 2016. One of the exceptions for the 2210 penalty is that you had no tax liability for the previous year. Essentially, you don't owe 2210 penalty until year 2 of being off on estimates.
Not unless you elect to be taxed as a corporation. If you have a single-member LLC, you can elect for it to be taxed as a disregarded entity, c corp, or s corp. If you elect to be taxed as a disregarded entity, your entity will be treated as though it doesn't exist for federal income tax purposes, and all income, expense, loss, gain, credit, and deduction of the business will be your own and be reported on Schedule C of your income tax return. You will pay your own FICA/payroll taxes (employee and employer share) on your income at your individual rate. If you elect to be taxed as an s corp, your entity will exist for federal income tax purposes, but all of the income, loss, etc. will pass through to you and be reflected on a K-1 issued to you as the sole shareholder. You're responsible for taxes on these amounts at your individual rate, regardless of whether you take a distribution. If you elect s corp taxation, you will be able to avoid FICA/payroll taxes; however, the IRS will require that you pay yourself reasonable compensation (and not just receive distributions) to prevent what the IRS considers abuse. If you elect to be taxed as a c corp., your corporation will pay tax at the corporate tax rate, and then you will pay taxes at your individual rate on all dividends you actually receive from the corporation.
You may want to consider electing to have your entity be taxed as an s corp. You can elect s-corp taxation through the LLC structure, so there's not need to reorganize or incorporate. It could allow you to avoid the 15.3% self-employment tax on a portion of your taxable income.
any of you PI guys have any experience or know anyone who advertised in spanish-language newspapers? a guy i know left his firm ~4 months ago, bought an ad for like $40 per week in one of these papers and has signed up 2-3 clients a month from the ads. apparently the folks who read those things won't call white bros. a spanish-speaking attorney wants to leave my old firm. thinking about telling her to come over, spending $500 a week advertising in those things with her picture, and telling her she can work up the files and keep a portion of whatever she recovers.
I don't know much about PI work, but I know that there are a handful of Dallas PI attorneys who absolutely crush, with an entirely-Hispanic clientele. Based on what I know about some of my Gringo friend/contact's PI clientele in Dallas, there are more than enough Hispanic clients to go around, and I'm sure it would be that way in Houston too. That said, I wouldn't waste your time in advertising in those magazines if you're not bilingual.
I have one open case left in Family Law with a trial date set. I am done with Family Law as soon as that trial concludes.
Ha, just sent a case up there actually. We filed in SC and at our motion for temp relief, got our own case/motion dismissed and the whole case was sent to Massachusetts where my client lives. Bizarre procedurally but pulled it off somehow.
Like 45% of the claims we handle from FL, TX, and CA are hispanics. It's insane. Huge business opportunity for you if you can get that relationship going. Lots of fraud though, so be careful.
guy starts work october 5 dies a year later. 2 life insurance policies. insurance denies says it rolls there enrollment date from oct 5 to beginning of november per the policy. has to be enrolled for a year to get policy. but he actually did work a year paying for policy premiums out of pay check. obviously have to see policy but from 20k foot view-legit or not by insurance co?
Had court in rural west Alabama today. Just took a fairly substantial default against this individual. He just refused to respond to the complaint whatsoever. We originally filed suit assuming this company had insurance, but nothing. It's unbelievable. Kind of feel bad about it, but we're going to end up executing and levying against this guy's house because he's a total imbecile.
That fucking sucks for all parties involved. Semi-related story. My Dad was raised with money. When he was like 23 and still in business school, he and his older brother formed a general partnership to start building apartments around Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. They made a killing for a few years. Then the savings and loan crisis hit. As property values started plummeting, lenders started foreclosing and suing my Dad's general partnership for the deficiency. My Dad's brother was the registered agent for the general partnership, so he was served with all of the lawsuits. He was going through a rough time and was starting to lose his mind (mind is now gone), and he just stuffed all of the citations in a dresser and never told anyone. Meanwhile, to everyone's surprise, my Dad's brother, who had the same name as his father (my Grandfather), had signed my Grandfather's name, individually and as trustee for the family trust, to many of the loan documents as an additional partner. He too was sued. Several months later, my Dad and Grandfather find out that default judgments had been entered against them and the trust for ~$35mm. It was a mess. Everyone had to file for bankruptcy and lost everything they had; and my grandfather, who held a prestigious elected office position and was the President and Director of a bank, had to resign from everything. I was 4 when this all happened. We packed up and moved from a nice house in Highland Park (Dallas) to North Carolina, where we lived in apartments/rental homes for the next several years. Moral of the story: Don't use general partnerships and don't go into business with a person with mental/emotional issues.
Gracious, that's terrible. This guy is a licensed land surveyor, but hires these people with no qualifications all over the state to do the work and then stamps his name on it. Only reason we found out was the guy supposed to be doing the survey cut and ran on my clients, and then after some research I found where he and this surveyor had been sanctioned by the state board previously. I sue, and I wait for a long time to get an answer. Finally, I write to the guy saying you need to turn this over to your carrier so they can answer or we're taking a default. He just calls my office and cusses me saying he's going to sue me. Told me good luck trying to get anything out of him. Guy is a douche and an idiot, but I'm not real keen on taking his house.
Yeah, going to have to. Actually, reviewing the statutes now. Just stupid, once I found out he didn't have any coverage, I would have just settled the thing for pennies on the dollar.
Quick research is telling me that our homestead exemption does not protect on judgments based on torts.
Have a hearing coming up on my clients 12(b)(6) motion in a case. Case is for divorce and termination of alimony. Guy essentially wants to reopen a judgment because he claims my client was committing adultery (she denies) and thus she should have been barred from receiving alimony. He can't prove anything to base a rule 60 motion on, so he filed this bullshit action to get discovery. The threshold issue is whether taking judicial notice is proper on a 12(b)(6) motion. I'm confident the court will take judicial notice of the prior judgment and dismiss the termination of alimony cause of action. The more difficult issue is getting the divorce cause of action dismissed. I am expecting the guy to admit adultery in his reply. If he does, then he can't win on the divorce cause of action because of recrimination. That would mean the case should be dismissed without discovery. If he does admits to his adultery in the reply, any thoughts on whether I can get the court to take judicial notice of the admission and consider it when ruling on the 12(b)(6) motion? Any other strategy yall might suggest (we have no summary judgment in family court here, so that isn't an option).
Any of you fellow PI guys experts on FEHBA subrogation? Is it as murky and fucked up as I think it is or do any of you have any slick strategies to avoid paying or leverage massive reductions?
It's generally a giant mess. The guys at synergy are usually a big help on issues like this and some states still allow outsourcing lien resolution.
Coincidentally, I was just reading their summation of the law. Looks like my circuit hasn't further defined the McVeigh decision by the supremes. Think I can use that to create leverage to at least reduce the lien. Letter from subro adjuster even misquoted the statute saying it preempts all state laws regarding health insurance plans. Nah, bitch just with regard to coverage and benefits. FEHBA overriding made whole doctrine to allow subro lien attachment isn't coverage or benefits or at least unlike NY, ga hasn't taken an indirect approach to say that it is.
Tomorrow's motion: Statute: guardian cannot leave child under age of 6 unattended in a car for 15 mins. Argument: The 5 year old was left with a 10 year old, thus not unattended. Should be fun.
I did not find any on that particular statute, but there is a bunch regarding supervision of children in child neglect etc. Age 12 is typically ok to put in charge. Sometimes the client wants to see something done in their case even if it's a long shot. Client was inside a store for a job interview. This particular client is facing a violation of probation if she loses this case. In the VOP they want 3 years prison.
Actually charge triggers revocation hearing at which the standard is preponderance rather than reasonable doubt. Almost impossible to win and mostly doing damage control. Courts almost solely listen to POs recommendation in sentencing so playing nicely is the best strategy I've found. Thankfully I no longer practice criminal defense. Hated it.
Ok, well pretty much the same. VOP hearing keeps getting pushed until the new case is settled. But yes, if the vop hrng hits first then it is preponderance.
Trying to wrap up a $350k settlement today that involves like 4 different insurance carriers. I've taken like 6 depos in 3 different states on this one. Have everyone locked in except one party hasn't come to the table with the number I need. Have till the end of the day today to get it settled as I made it contingent on being done by 5pm today or we proceed to trial next month and no further offer forthcoming. Also have a 6 figure health insurance lien I'm trying to resolve on it too. I told them now is your chance to get some money back. But if you don't reduce your lien this settlement isn't going to happen because my client wont get shit. And who knows what will happen at trial. So you're a dumbass if you don't reduce the lien and just take the money. I had synergy on them but they weren't doing anything.