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1,415 plain-English guides on cross-border moves, US and Canadian returns, and small-business money. Each one ends in what to do next, and says when a written Position Check is the smarter first step.

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CROSS-BORDER A Canadian Corporation With a U.S. Shareholder

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1,415 guides

Small Business Tax

Marine Service Business Entity and Estimated Taxes: The Yard in Its Own LLC, the S Election, and the Hurricane That Rewrites the Fourth Quarter

September 30, 2026

A boatyard owner's most valuable asset is usually the waterfront — land that is scarce, appreciating, and exposed to the yard's operating liabilities unless it sits in its own entity. The operating business elects S status on the standard arithmetic, and the estimated taxes follow a season the weather sets: spring commissioning, fall storage contracts, and a hurricane that can rewrite a quarter. Here is both, for a mobile marine technician, a repair shop, and a full-service yard.

Small Business Tax

Medical Spa Entity and Estimated Taxes: The Management Company, the Professional Entity, and the December That Sells Next Year's Treatments

September 30, 2026

A medical spa's entity structure is often two entities — a management company and a physician-owned professional entity — and the tax planning happens inside that structure: the S election for each, the fair-market management fee that moves profit between them, and the QBI deduction that one entity keeps and the other may not. The estimated taxes run on a December that sells next year's packages and gift cards and a device year that erases the tax. Here is both.

Small Business Tax

Medical Spa Taxes: The Medical Director, the Injectables Inventory, the Memberships, and the Corporate Practice Rule

September 30, 2026

A medical spa sits between a medical practice and a retail spa — injectables, lasers, and body treatments delivered under a physician's supervision, sold through memberships and packages, with a retail skincare line — and its tax picture has pieces of both: the state's corporate practice of medicine rules decide who can own it, the injectables are inventory with a cost that dominates the margin, prepaid packages and memberships raise the advance-payment question, and the specified-service label depends on what the business actually does. Here is each deduction and the structural questions.

Small Business Tax

Physician Practice Entity Structure: The Professional Corporation, the Group Practice Rules, the Cash Balance Plan, and the Hospital or Private Equity Offer

September 30, 2026

A physician practice's entity decision is made inside the corporate practice of medicine rules, the Stark law's group practice definition, and a specified-service label that zeroes the QBI deduction — so the planning instruments are the compensation plan, the retirement plan, and the exit: a hospital employment deal, a private equity platform's management services structure, or independence. Here is the analysis for a solo physician, a multi-physician group, and a group weighing an offer.

Small Business Tax

Physician Practice Taxes: Collections Not Charges, the Credit Balances, the Ancillary Services, and the Stark Rules That Shape the Compensation

September 30, 2026

A physician practice's return is collections — the insurers' allowed amounts and the patients' balances, net of contractual adjustments that are never income — against a staff, an EHR, malpractice, and the ancillary services (imaging, lab, infusion, physical therapy) that the federal self-referral and anti-kickback rules constrain. Here is each deduction, the revenue-cycle items that trip up practices' books, and how the Stark rules shape the way physicians in a group can be paid.

Small Business Tax

Property Management Company Deductions: The Trust Account, the Owner Disbursements, the Maintenance Crew, and the 1099s You File for Your Owners

September 30, 2026

A property management company collects rent that isn't its income, pays expenses that aren't its deductions, and files information returns on behalf of owners who never see the tenants. Its own return is management fees, leasing fees, and maintenance markups against a payroll, a fleet of maintenance vehicles, and software. Here is the trust-account discipline, each deduction category, and the 1099 obligations the manager carries for its owners.

Small Business Tax

Property Management Company Entity Structure: The LLC, the S Election, the Brokerage License, and the Door Count a Buyer Pays For

September 30, 2026

A property management company's entity decision runs on the S election arithmetic against a property manager's salary, inside the state's real estate licensing rules — most states require the company or its principal to hold a broker's license — and with an exit market that values the business per door under management. Here is the analysis for a solo manager, a company with staff and a maintenance crew, and an owner planning a sale.

Small Business Tax

Property Management Company Estimated Taxes: Steady Fees, the Leasing Season, and the Year the Management Contracts Were Bought

September 30, 2026

A property management company's income is among the steadiest in small business — a percentage of rent collected every month — with a leasing season that lifts the summer, maintenance billings that follow the weather, and a growth path that often runs through buying another manager's contracts, whose fifteen-year amortization changes the tax. Here is the estimated-tax routine for an S corporation manager and a solo manager on Schedule C.

Small Business Tax

Staffing Agency Entity and Estimated Taxes: The S Election, the Healthcare Line That Needs Its Own Entity, and the Owners' Trust Fund Exposure

September 30, 2026

A staffing agency's entity decision has the usual S election arithmetic on a manager's salary, a specified-service question that depends on which workers it places, and a personal exposure no entity removes: the trust fund recovery penalty for unpaid payroll taxes reaches the owners and officers who control the deposits. The estimated taxes run on a gross margin that swings with the placements and a Work Opportunity credit that lapsed for 2026 hires and may return. Here is both.

Small Business Tax

Staffing Agency Taxes: The Payroll You Carry for Clients, Workers' Compensation by Class Code, the PEO Question, and the Gross-Versus-Net Revenue Line

September 30, 2026

A staffing agency is the employer of workers who work somewhere else: it pays their wages and payroll taxes weekly, carries their workers' compensation by the client's class code, and bills the client a markup weeks later. Its tax picture turns on being the employer of record, on the payroll float, on the difference between temporary staffing and a professional employer organization, and on the specified-service question for the staffing of licensed professionals. Here is each piece.

Small Business Tax

Used Car Dealer Entity and Estimated Taxes: The BHPH Finance Company, the S Election, and the Tax Refund Season That Sells a Quarter of the Year

September 30, 2026

A used car dealer's entity decision often involves two companies — the dealership and a related finance company that holds the buy-here-pay-here notes — and its estimated taxes are shaped by a sales calendar the tax system itself creates: February through April, when customers' tax refunds become down payments. Here is the entity analysis for a retail lot, a BHPH dealer with a related finance company, and the estimated-tax routine built around the refund season.

Small Business Tax

Used Car Dealer Taxes: Floor Plan Interest, Form 8300 for Cash Deals, Buy-Here-Pay-Here Installment Sales, and Inventory That Depreciates on the Lot

September 30, 2026

A used car dealership is an inventory business whose inventory loses value every day on the lot, financed by a floor plan whose interest has its own tax rule, selling to customers who pay cash (Form 8300 at US$10,000), finance through a lender (the dealer reserve), or — at a buy-here-pay-here lot — finance through the dealer itself on installment notes. Here is each: the inventory valuation, the floor plan interest, the Form 8300 obligation, the installment method, the warranties and add-ons, and the sales tax on vehicles.

Small Business Tax

Wedding and Event Venue Deductions: The Deposits a Year Ahead, the Building, the Catering, and the Season That Decides the Year

September 30, 2026

A wedding and event venue sells dates a year or more in advance, collects deposits that are income under the cash method long before the event, and delivers the event with a building, grounds, and often a catering operation — each with its own tax treatment. Here is the deposit timing, the building and land improvements a venue is made of, the catering and bar operation, the vendors the venue pays and the ones it only refers, and the sales tax on a bundled event.

Small Business Tax

ADS Depreciation: When the Alternative System Is Required

September 29, 2026

ADS depreciation explained: what the Alternative Depreciation System is, who must use it, who may elect it, and how its longer recovery periods and straight-line method compare with GDS.

Small Business Tax

Architecture and Engineering Firm Deductions: The Software, the Sub-Consultants, the Professional Liability, and the 179D Allocation

September 29, 2026

An architecture or engineering firm's costs are people, software, and insurance — with sub-consultants passed through, reimbursables billed back, and a professional liability policy priced for the buildings the firm designed. Two tax features set the profession apart: architects and engineers are expressly excluded from the specified-service list, so the QBI deduction survives at every income; and designers of energy-efficient government buildings can be allocated the section 179D deduction the tax-exempt owner can't use. Here is each category.

Small Business Tax

Architecture and Engineering Firm Entity Structure: The Professional Entity, the S Election, and the QBI Deduction the Profession Kept

September 29, 2026

An architecture or engineering firm's entity decision has the licensing rules on ownership that every profession faces, a professional liability exposure that follows a building for a decade, and one advantage the other professions lack: architecture and engineering are excluded from the specified-service list, so the S election's salary has a real QBI cost the firm must count, and the deduction itself is worth protecting through the wage-and-property limitation as the principals' incomes rise. Here is the analysis for a sole practitioner, a two-principal firm, and a firm planning an internal ownership transition.

Small Business Tax

Auto Repair Shop Deductions: The Lifts, the Parts Inventory, the Diagnostic Subscriptions, and the Environmental Fees

September 29, 2026

An auto repair shop's costs are equipment (lifts, alignment racks, diagnostic scanners, tire machines), a parts inventory that is real inventory, labor billed at a rate the shop sets, and a compliance layer — waste oil, refrigerant, tire disposal, environmental permits — that is deductible because it is mandatory. Add the sublet work, the core charges, and the customer-supplied parts, and the return has a shape no other trade shares. Here is each category and the elections.

Small Business Tax

Auto Repair Shop Entity Structure: The LLC, the S Election, and the Building That Should Be in a Separate Entity

September 29, 2026

An auto repair shop's entity decision has the standard S election arithmetic on a working owner-technician's salary, a liability profile that includes every customer's car in the building, and one structural point most shop owners get wrong: the shop building, when owned, belongs in a separate entity that leases it to the operating company. Here is the analysis for a solo mechanic, a multi-bay shop with technicians, and a shop that owns its real estate.

Small Business Tax

Auto Repair Shop Estimated Taxes: Daily Tickets, the Parts Float, and the Lift Year That Changes the Fourth Quarter

September 29, 2026

An auto repair shop has among the steadiest income in the trades — cars break every day — with a mild seasonal shape, a parts float that keeps cash and profit close, and an equipment cycle (lifts, an alignment rack, a scan tool) that can erase a quarter's tax. Here is the estimated-tax setup for a shop, the safe harbor and reserve, the S corporation withholding through the technician payroll, and the recompute for the equipment year.

Small Business Tax

Bad Debt Deduction: When Unpaid Invoices Are Deductible

September 29, 2026

Bad debt deduction explained: business versus nonbusiness bad debts under section 166, the worthlessness test, why cash-method businesses cannot deduct an unpaid invoice, loans to family and friends, and how to document the deduction.

Small Business Tax

Bonus Depreciation: How the 100 Percent Write-Off Works

September 29, 2026

Bonus depreciation explained after the 2025 law: what the special depreciation allowance covers, the acquisition-date rule, how it interacts with section 179 and MACRS, and when to elect out.

Small Business Tax

Convert an LLC to a C Corp: Tax Consequences

September 29, 2026

Converting an LLC to a C corporation explained: the three ways to convert, the tax-free incorporation rules under section 351, the liabilities-in-excess-of-basis trap, what happens to the LLC's tax attributes, why startups raising venture capital convert, and when an S election is the better move.

Small Business Tax

Cost Segregation Study: What It Is and When It Pays

September 29, 2026

Cost segregation explained: how a study reclassifies building components into 5-, 7-, and 15-year property, what it costs, when it pays for a small business or landlord, and the recapture trade-off.

Small Business Tax

De Minimis Safe Harbor: Expense Small Purchases

September 29, 2026

De minimis safe harbor explained: the annual election to deduct items costing up to $2,500 per invoice or item ($5,000 with audited financial statements) instead of depreciating them, and how to elect it.

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