Every once in a while, things build up on us.  Hopefully this is not something you’re feeling in the middle of the summer, as ideally this is the time when you are pulling a little less onto your plate, and not just in an attempt to get that beach body. That hasn’t been the case for things that I thought I should mention in this space, though, so here are a few quick hits to get these off my plate.

The biggest one of these may be the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair that will let states and local jurisdictions impose sales tax on online sales. For many, online purchases have been most wonderful because of their ease and convenience, but sometimes they came with the bonus of not needing to pay sales tax, but those days seem to be over.

This is most important to note for those who run businesses online, where thinking about sales tax outside of where you are located had not been a concern. If you are in this position, I implore you to find a solution before it is too late, and there are online tools that will help with this.  It will take some initial setup, but this is the type of thing that eventually becomes a seamless part of your business. This initial outlay of time and effort will be better than getting into a situation where you are called upon to make sales tax payments when you never collected the money.

On the payroll side of things, the Department of Labor seems set to propose new overtime rules in October. We can speak about this a little more when/if it actually happens, but I thought it was worth mentioning it here to put it into business owners’ heads. Once you appropriately set up payroll, after all, much of making sure you’re in compliance takes care of itself, but the rules do sometimes change and require attention.

Finally, the AICPA (an accounting professional group) sent a letter to the IRS requesting guidance on some FAQs concerning how cryptocurrencies are taxed.  This does not mean that anything will necessarily not be taxed (rest assured, whenever there are things of value out there, the IRS is going to want to tax it), but just how it is taxed.

Without getting too deep into the weeds, this is mostly about how things are taxed, and possibly when they are taxed. And it could be that the IRS chooses not to react toward this and nothing changes.  If it does, however, there could be some tweaks you may want to make to put yourself in the most advantageous tax position. So if you are involved this world, this is something to keep tabs on.

And of course these aren’t the only things to have come across the radar that never get to see a full blog treatment. So as always, if you have any issues that you would like to discuss, we are always happy to hear from you and give you some more personal direction.