As an Audit Senior Manager with PKF Texas, working in a fast-paced, client- and market-facing environment, as well as being a wife and mother to seven-year-old triplets, life-work balance means something different to me than it does to others.
Recently I was listening to author and marketer, Nigel Marsh, speaking at TEDxSydney from May 2010. He introduced the challenges of maintaining a healthy life-work balance and broke it down into four subsets:
U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) require not-for-profits to regularly evaluate whether there’s “substantial doubt” about their ability to continue as a going concern. This means that the organization won’t soon liquidate its assets and cease operations.
What does your management team do if it determines substantial doubt?
Americans who are 65 and older qualify for basic Medicare insurance, and they may need to pay additional premiums to get the level of coverage they desire. The premiums can be expensive, especially if you’re married and both you and your spouse are paying them.
But one aspect of paying premiums might be positive: If you qualify, they may help lower your tax bill.
Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back again with Miriam Rouziek, an Audit Manager and one of the faces of PKF Texas’s SEC team. Miriam, welcome back to the Playbook.
Miriam: Thank you for having me, Jen.
Jen: So, tell us what’s coming down the pipe with the SEC? Are they doing any updates this year in 2019?
Miriam: Yeah. The SEC is really going to start focusing on some different things here in 2019.
It’s a well-known truism in the corporate world: Organizations that don’t evolve run the risk of becoming obsolete. But instead of anticipating and reacting to market demands like their for-profit counterparts, many not-for-profits hold on to old ideas about how their organizations should be run.
Here are a few things your not-for-profit can learn from the business world.
Do you want to save more for retirement on a tax-favored basis? If so, and if you qualify, you can make a deductible traditional IRA contribution for the 2018 tax year between now and the tax filing deadline and claim the write-off on your 2018 return. Or you can contribute to a Roth IRA and avoid paying taxes on future withdrawals.
You can potentially make a contribution of up to $5,500 (or $6,500 if you were age 50 or older as of December 31, 2018). If you’re married, your spouse can potentially do the same, thereby doubling your tax benefits.
The deadline for 2018 traditional and Roth contributions for most taxpayers is April 15, 2019 (April 17 for those in Maine and Massachusetts).
There are some ground rules.
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Russ: This is PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Russ Capper, this week’s guest host, and I’m coming to you from the Gulf Coast Regional Family Forum. I’m very pleased to have as my guest now, Richard Gruber, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of MERIT SI. Richard, welcome to the show.
Richard: Thank you, Russ.
Russ: You bet. Tell us about MERIT SI.
Richard: MERIT SI is a two-year-old firm headquartered in Houston. Our focus is developing renewable strategies and solutions for energy, water and chemical companies to help them drive lower costs, reduce their emissions and improve their overall stakeholder awareness.
Russ: Ok. So, renewables, are we talking about solar and wind?
Richard: Principally, solar and solar with battery storage, and typically with advanced controls. And located at their points of demand for these companies, so where they consume it is where we site it.
Competition is as fierce as it has ever been for private and public grants to not-for-profits. If your funding model depends on receiving adequate grant money, you can’t afford to submit sloppy, unprofessional grant proposals.
Here are some tips on writing a winner.
Required minimum distributions (RMDs) are the amounts you’re legally required to withdraw from your qualified retirement plans and traditional IRAs after reaching age 70½. If you participate in a qualified retirement plan, such as a 401(k), you must generally begin taking required withdrawals from the plan no later than April 1 of the year after which you turn age 70½.
However, there’s an exception that applies to certain plan participants who are still working for the entire year in which they turn 70½.
Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back again with Frank Landreneau, one of our International Tax Directors. Frank, welcome back to The Playbook.
Frank: Thanks, Jen. It’s great to be back.
Jen: We’ve been talking about IC-DISC, and last time we talked about tax reform. What’s changed strategy wise since before tax reform and now after tax reform?
Frank: I think with IC-DISC it’s kind of a Back to the Future type of thing, because when the IC-DISC came out, it was really meant to be a deferral tactic and to really get tax advantages, because you’re deferring the recognition of the IC-DISC income, or really, the export income.
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