Category Archives: Announcements

Jun 04

Word of the Day

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Durable Power of Attoney

This is a legal document wherein a Principal names an Agent to act on his behalf. The Durable part of the Power of Attorney means that even if the Principal loses competency (his legal ability to act on his own behalf), then the Agent still has authority to enter into actions on behalf of the Principal. The Durable Power of Attorney is highly advised for any person who is elderly or has family history of mental or physical illness because the DPOA can be used to avoid guardianship or conservatorship in most cases. The Durable Power of Attorney ceases to grant any power upon the death of the Principal, however, because there has to be a living principal for powers to be granted.

To learn more about agents, powers of attorney, principals and other estate planning options, please contact Brent S. Howard, the only attorney in Altus and surrounding southwest Oklahoma that focuses practice solely on estate planning, taxes, business planning, wills, trusts and probate.

Jun 02

Obamacare and Counting Full-time employees

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From the IRS:

For the purposes of the Affordable Care Act, employers average their number of employees across the months in the year to see whether they will be an applicable large employer.

To determine if your organization is an applicable large employer for a year, count your organization’s full-time employees and full-time equivalent employees for each month of the prior year. If you are a member of an aggregated group, count the full-time employees and full-time equivalent employees of all members of the group for each month of the prior year. Then average the numbers for the year. Employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees are applicable large employers and will need to file anannual information return reporting whether and what health insurance they offered employees. In addition, they are subject to the Employer Shared Responsibility provisions.

In general:

  • A full-time employee is an employee who is employed on average, per month, at least 30 hours of service per week, or at least 130 hours of service in a calendar month.
  • A full-time equivalent employee is a combination of employees, each of whom individually is not a full-time employee, but who, in combination, are equivalent to a full-time employee.
  • An aggregated group is commonly owned or otherwise related or affiliated employers, which must combine their employees to determine their workforce size.


There are many additional rules on determining who is a full-time employee, including what counts as hours of service. For more information on these rules, see the employer shared responsibility final regulations and related questions and answers on IRS.gov.

Jun 01

Potential loss of tax protection

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There is a current proposal by the IRS to increase the amount of self-employment taxes paid by small businesses. The proposal goes along the following lines:

FICA taxes (Social Security and Medicare taxes) are imposed on wages up to about $120,000. These are paid one-half by an employer and one-half withheld from an employee’s wages. If you are self-employed, you pay both halves. If you are a general partner of an active partnership and there is a distribution, then you are allocated this as self-employment taxable. A simple way around having to pay self-employment on all earnings was to organize as an S corporation and set your wages at a certain level.

However, the IRS has proposed that all income from a professional service business may be subject to the self-employment taxes in the same manner, regardless of the form of the business (partnership or S corporation). If the IRS is successful in closing this “loophole” then it has been estimated to raise $75 Billion in taxes over the next 10 years.

Who will this affect? Just the local small business that is organized as an S corporation. If you have a small business, then you should schedule a time to meet with your local estate or business planner and your tax preparer to learn how this proposed regulation can affect you. If you have not organized to maximize your liability protection, then I encourage you to do so by scheduling an appointment with me as soon as possible. It is best to meet with a person that is aware of all aspects of the business (legal, tax and estate) when you are planning around your livelihood.

Mar 26

Last 20 days of the 2014 tax season!

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With today being March 26, there are only 20 days left to make a timely filing of your individual tax returns. This also means only 20 days to make any late contributions to your IRA for the 2014 tax year.

With all of the recent changes in the tax code (some related to Obamacare, and others just to tax changes by Congress), I can honestly say that I am not sad to see this season go.

If you have not had your return prepared, then get on the ball and call your tax preparer. If you need more time, then you can file for an automatic extension of time to file, but that is not an automatic extension of time to pay.

If you feel that you will owe money this year (I’m looking at you farmers and ranchers that received large LFP payments this year), then you should still make an estimated payment on your 2014 taxes because amounts owed will incur penalties and interest from April 15.

If I can help in any way, I will gladly do my best. Your friendly, neighborhood estate planning attorney is on the job.

Feb 25

Obamacare tax hitting about 52% of filers

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From one of my favorite political sites, LegalInsurrection:

H&R Block has found that a majority of ObamaCare customers, 52 percent, are being forced to pay back some of their subsidies during this year’s tax season. The average amount being paid back is $530, which, if you consider that to receive subsidies in the first place that you had to be below 300% of the federal poverty level, is a great amount.

“Remember when Obamacare supporters insisted it wasn’t a tax?” “Remember when President Obama repeatedly claimed Obamacare would save families $2,500 per year?”

I encourage you to go to the full site for further reading on it. (Could not get hyperlink to work at this time) http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/02/majority-of-obamacare-customers-will-owe-money-this-tax-season/#more-117605