Tax & accounting concepts, explained

Five laws matter most: CARES Act (recovery rebates, expanded unemployment, PPP), American Rescue Plan Act (expanded Child Tax Credit, ACA premium credits), Inflation Reduction Act (clean energy credits, IRS funding, corporate AMT), and SECURE 2.0 (RMD age changes, Roth 401(k) match). Many TCJA-era individual rates are also scheduled to sunset after 2025, which makes year-end planning unusually important right now.

For individuals: Roth conversions in low-income years, charitable bunching with a donor-advised fund, year-end capital gains planning, and maxing tax-advantaged accounts in the right order (employer match, HSA, IRA, then 401(k)). For businesses: entity choice revisited annually, owner-payroll discipline, QBI-aware hiring, and 401(k) match in lender- and grant-favorable years. Year-round planning routinely produces 10–30% lower lifetime taxes than April-only filing.

Common oversights include: HSA contributions for those on HDHP plans, the Saver's Credit for lower-income retirement savers, residential clean-energy credits after recent solar/heat-pump installs, the student-loan interest deduction, the Child and Dependent Care Credit, and North Carolina's 529 deduction or Georgia's retirement-income exclusion. A pre-filing review almost always surfaces at least one missed item for any non-trivial return.

Mixing personal and business expenses in the same accounts. Missing quarterly estimated tax deadlines (federal, NC, and GA each have them). Choosing an entity once and never revisiting it as profits grow. Underpaying owner-employee payroll through a weak 'reasonable comp' salary. Forgetting 1099-NEC filings for non-employee contractors. Skipping retirement-plan contributions that could shelter tens of thousands of dollars of profit.

Defensible default order: capture any employer 401(k) match first, then max an HSA if eligible (triple tax advantage), then fund Roth or traditional IRA based on marginal rate today vs. retirement, then finish maxing the 401(k), then a taxable account for any additional savings. Self-employed owners have extra options (SEP, Solo 401(k), Cash Balance) that often produce much larger deductible contributions than the IRA limit alone.

Don't ignore it — the IRS does not 'send another one' as a reminder. Read the upper-right section carefully. Almost every letter includes a date by which you must respond and a phone number on the back of the letter. Most routine notices can be resolved with a phone call or signed response form. For anything involving 'examination,' 'proposed adjustment,' 'levy,' or 'appeal,' talk to a representative before you reply.

Keep books on a monthly cadence with bank and credit-card accounts reconciled, receipts captured the day they arrive, and a simple chart of accounts that maps cleanly to your tax return. Tax season becomes a quarter-end push — not an all-nighter.