2008 Federal Income Tax Update
This federal income tax update deals with the latest individual tax changes affecting 2008, including new tax legislation. Topics include: planning after-tax reform, new cases, rulings and regulations, hot planning opportunities, and more. The majority of this course relates to changes affecting individual taxation.
2008 Business Tax Developments
This course focuses on the latest federal income tax changes affecting businesses, including C and S corporations, LLCs/partnerships and sole proprietorships. This course will also discuss any pending or recent tax law changes.
New Developments – Estate, Gift and Retirement Planning
This course deals with recent cases and rulings related to estate planning including those affecting business valuations, discounts, hot topics, planning strategies, and more.
What to do with the Business: Buying and Selling the Family Business and Other Succession Planning
This course deals with family tax and other succession planning. Topics include: tax considerations in buying and selling a business including asset versus stock transactions, special considerations involving S corporations and partnerships; Non-tax considerations such as environmental issues, retirement plans, employment and labor law issues, due diligence consideration, and considerations for buyers, sellers and heirs in succession planning and buy-sell agreements for closely-held businesses.
Planning for an Aging Population: Estate Planning, Retirement Planning and Eldercare Issues
The average age of the population is getting older and with it are many important planning issues. This course focuses on estate, retirement and financial planning issues specific to the aging population. Topics include: estate planning for aging clients, including making gifts to younger beneficiaries, The use of advanced planning strategies, and planning ideas for persons with short life expectancies; retirement distribution planning including: choosing a beneficiary, getting plan benefits before age 59 1/2, estate taxes on retirement assets; and, important considerations in eldercare planning.
Financial and Tax Planning for Special Circumstances
The course reviews the financial and tax planning issues confronted in special circumstance such as planning for couples contemplating divorce, nontraditional families and couples, parents of children with special needs, disability, accident and health insurance benefits, gifts, inheritances, and other monetary windfalls, and unique estate planning issues that pertain to these special issues.
2008 IRS Representation Update
Over the past few years, the IRS has dramatically increased its IRS examinations and enforcement efforts. This course discusses the methods the IRS is using in its new enforcement environment including new examination and collection priorities and procedures, criminal investigation initiatives, Taxpayer Advocate Services Report on problems in the tax system, new procedures at IRS campuses and which are closing, impact of new IRS leadership, and more.
Creative Estate Planning and Charitable Planning Techniques for 2008 – Part 1
This course will bring you up to date with the latest estate planning techniques for 2008. Topics include a review of the concepts behind the federal transfer tax system, including federal gift, estate and generation skipping transfer taxes; transfer tax benefits of lifetime gifting; transfers with retained control, including a review of recent case law on family limited partnerships; charitable split interest remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts and how to integrate them into an estate tax reduction plan.
Creative Estate Planning and Charitable Planning Techniques for 2008 – Part 2
This course will focus on various estate planning techniques important to high-net-worth individuals. Topics include estate freeze techniques, including installment sales to grantor trusts and self-cancelling installment notes; actuarial techniques, including QPRTs, GRATs, GRITs and private annuity sales; entity selection and planning with S Corp. stock, including transfers to trusts such as QSSTs and ESBTs; proactively planning for valuation discounts.
Planning for Retirement in 2008
A nationally-known retirement planning author outlines the history of retirement plans and how they will change with the Pension Protection Act. The course explores ways to boost retirement income, how to use the different retirement plan choices, ways to avoid taxation in retirement, and information from inside sources on how Social Security will reduce benefits and hike taxes for higher-income retirees.
Real Estate Tax Update
The course addresses current developments in real estate taxation and a review of pertinent recent new legislation, regulatory guidance and other informational guidance issued by the Internal Revenue Service over the past year. Topics include: review of tax advantages and problem areas in real estate, acquisition issues, developer vs. investor tax status, operating and leasing real estate, tax credits associated with real estate, tax treatments of dispositions, tax deferred exchanges, involuntary conversions, cost segregation, personal residences, choice of entity, special forms of holding real estate, foreign investments in U.S. real estate and more.
Tax Planning Strategies for High-Income Clients
This session will address multiple topics that significantly impact high-income clients. The dreaded AMT provisions will be analyzed, with emphasis placed on AMT minimization and strategic responses. Passive loss rules and restrictions that tend to impact higher income taxpayers will be addressed, including strategies to avoid the dreaded self-rental rules and traps associated with vacation homes. Additionally, common (and often overlooked) tax planning strategies for individuals, normally easily implemented, will be presented. Finally, education funding strategies for high-income taxpayers will be discussed, including efficient use of the “tax capacity” of a child under the new, onerous kiddie tax rules. This is a session guaranteed to result in tax-saving, take-home strategies for you and your clients.
Using an IRA as A Family Wealth Transfer Vehicle
This course will highlight the benefit of positioning tax-deferred asset for maximum family wealth. We will explore ways to reduce the IRD Estate Taxes on IRAs using Roth conversion techniques and Credit Shelter Trusts. An analysis of what investment mix is appropriate between taxable and tax deferred accounts and we will also learn about self directed IRA’s. We will discuss why trusts may be the best designated beneficiary as well as a case of do’s and don’t for IRAs. A review of recent IRS rulings will also be presented.
Management and Business Consulting
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Prerequisite and advanced preparation: None
Category: Specialized knowledge
Level: Basic unless otherwise noted
Recommended CPE hours: 6 or 8*
Objectives and descriptions are noted below
The Art of Investing: Wall Street, the Fed and the Economy
This course takes you to the floor of the NYSE and gives you years of the speaker’s experience in finding the best places to invest, how to profit on the rumor, sell on the news, how to pick the best mutual funds, the growing Exchange Traded Funds, and the future of interest rates and the economy.
Annual Business Law Update – 2008
This course addresses significant legal issues affecting 2008 including court decisions that affect business entities, executives, and business owners. Topics include corporate governance, restrictive covenants, creditor rights, employment discrimination, shareholder disputes, piercing the corporation or LLC veil, real estate leases, business torts, trade secrets, intellectual property, and more.
Protecting Against Catastrophic Events
This course focuses on the planning opportunities when preparing for or dealing with catastrophic events such as judgments, natural disasters, tax liens, divorce, and bankruptcy. What can an individual do to protect their assets? When multiple entities should be used and the advantages and disadvantages of different types of entities will be explored.
Accounting and Auditing
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Prerequisite: Basic understanding of accounting and auditing
Category: Accounting or Auditing
Level: Intermediate
Recommended CPE hours: 6 or 8*
Objectives and descriptions are noted below
2008 FASB, SSARS and SAS Update and Other Developments Affecting the Profession
This course deals with the latest changes in accounting, auditing and compilation and review pronouncements of interest to accountants in public accounting and industry. Topics include: Recently issued FASB and AICPA accounting statements, new developments in compilation and review, recently issued auditing pronouncements, practice issues related to peer review, new ethics rulings, and more.
Fantastic Frauds
This course reviews the most famous frauds from recent years such as Enron, WorldCom, ZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning and address fraud in your community. Topics include: understanding the fraudster profile; who the person is in your company most likely to commit fraud; current information about who commits fraud, why they steal and how they do it; theft of assets: cash receipts, accounts receivable, theft of use of company assets, inventory theft, accounts payable and disbursements; Financial statement fraud; overstatement of revenues, understatement of expenses and manipulating asset values; which methods work best for detecting fraud; top ten ways to prevent fraud as well as auditing and accounting standards; fraud update; auditors’ responsibility for detecting fraud and auditor’s and accountants’ responsibility for reporting fraud.
Anatomy of a Company
This course takes business and financial statement analysis to a higher level. The instructor will focus on the analysis of several public corporations’ financial statements and SEC filings. Examples from actual filings will be used to illustrate the key points. The instructor will explain where to get the information, how to compute key metrics, and the significant points to look for.
Grab that Crook: Stopping Fraud in Its Tracks
In good economic times and bad, fraud continues to be a problem that plagues all types of organizations: public and nonpublic, profit and non-profit, governmental and non-governmental. One only needs to read the news on a regular basis to find numerous examples of frauds being perpetrated by individuals or entities against other individuals or entities. Fraud manifests itself in many ways, including fraudulent financial reporting, misappropriation of assets, and corruption. This course presents many different techniques that can be used to prevent and detect a variety of fraudulent acts. An organization’s number one defense against fraud is a well-designed and properly functioning internal control system and an environment that recognizes and rewards proper conduct.
Small Business Accounting and Reporting Issues – 2008
Four of five employing businesses have fewer than 20 people working in them. Small and young companies create two thirds of the net new jobs in our economy, and they employ half of all private-sector workers. Given the sheer number of small businesses, their impact on the U.S. economy is significant. This course explores current issues that are important to small business managers, owners, and their accountants. Some of the issues covered include: Big GAAP vs. Little GAAP, FIN 48 and uncertain tax positions, OCBOA financial statements, fraud in small businesses, and independence issues.
Financial Statement Analysis and Fraud Detection
This course is a review of financial statement analysis utilizing ratios, trend analysis, and common sized financial statements. This course focuses on what you need to know in order to do an effective financial review. We will look at the numbers but interpret them with the environment in which the company is operating. Financial statement analysis is much more than running numbers. The course will also review financial statement fraud and how financial analysis can be used to detect fraud.
Other Topics Include:
The New Retirement Planning Mindset
Transferring Wealth from the Greatest Generation to the Boomer Generation to the X Generation
Tax, Bankruptcy and Other Financial Problems
Please ask for course description.
*Each course consists of 6 hours of live CPE and an optional two-hour self-study course. There is no prerequisite or advanced preparation required for any self-study course. All self-study courses are designed for a basic level. Self-study credit has been determined based on the NASBA’s Registry-QAS measurement of 50 minutes per CPE hour. Certain states grant CPE credit using different measurements. Please consult with your state licensing board.
