In December, WFY welcomed three new hires to our WFY team. Vrinda Jagad and Hannah Nguyen joined our tax department, and EJ Herron joined our IT department. We are excited to have these new hires join our team. Vrinda Jagad In the middle of December, Vrinda Jagad joined WFY’s tax department as our International Tax Manager. Vrinda received her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and received her Master’s degree in Accounting from UC Irvine. She has been in the accounting industry, specifically in international tax, for 4 years. In her spare time, Vrinda loves traveling and cooking. Hannah Nguyen Hannah
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Posts by Chanelle Bosert
Strategic Charitable Giving Methods to Maximize Tax Savings
Ryan Working, CPA, MST Tax Partner When thinking about charitable giving there are many options and opportunities in addition to donating cash to your favorite charity. Highlighted here are just a few alternative strategies that may be worth looking into. Donation of Highly Appreciated Stock: The donation of highly appreciated stock allows for the avoidance of having to recognize the capital gain from the sale of the stock, yet you can still receive a charitable deduction at the fair market value of the stock. In order for this to work the stock needs to be donated directly to a
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Have You Considered a Backdoor Roth IRA Conversion?
Traditional IRAs are a well-known, tax-deferred retirement saving vehicle. But they come with a major downside: You’re taxed on withdrawals. Roth IRAs eliminate this downside. You can take federal-income-tax-free qualified withdrawals, but the trade-off is that contributions to Roth accounts don’t reduce your current-year taxable income. If you want to jump on the Roth IRA bandwagon, there are two ways to get money into a Roth account. First, you can make annual contributions. However, there are limitations on annual contributions, which leave many high earners in the cold. (See “Can You Make Annual Roth IRA Contributions for 2024 and 2025
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WISEPlace Chooses Byron Culp as Spotlight of the Month
This month, WISEPlace chose our Director of Business Development, Byron Culp, as their Board of Directors Spotlight. Byron has been a WISEPlace Board Member since May 2022 and dedicates his time to create awareness of women struggling with homelessness throughout the community. Byron is s passionate about initiatives focusing on children, cancer, hunger and homelessness. He also serves of the Board of Deacons at Second Baptist Church of Santa Ana and is the Chairman of the Benevolence Committee. WISEPlace is an organization that dedicates its efforts to ending homelessness for unaccompanied women through housing solutions and empowering wrap-around services that
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New Partnership Tax Basis Reporting Requirement for 2024
Albert Yang, CPA Tax Director The IRS recently released draft Form 7217, Partner’s Report of Property Distributed by a Partnership, and related draft instructions. The purpose of Form 7217 is to report all distribution of property that a partner receives from a partnership. A partner receiving a distribution of property from a partnership in a non-liquidating or liquidating distribution will use the form to report the basis of the distributed property. Type of distribution where Form 7217 IS required: Distribution of property subject to section 732. Types of distributions where Form 7217 IS NOT required: Distributions of money (or
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Corporate Transparency Act’s New Requirement for All Businesses
Greg Lambourne, Esq. Jason Gonzalez United States citizens should be aware the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) requires virtually all business entities registered in the 50 states to submit detailed written disclosure of their owners and powerholders to the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). These new “Beneficial Ownership Information Reports” (BOI Reports) for entities created before 2024 need to be filed by the end of the year when the Act enforcement begins. The BOE Reports require the names, addresses, and driver’s licenses or passports of all individuals that directly or indirectly own 25% or more of the company’s
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Tax Partner Richard Huffman Speaks at MGI’s 2024 Global AGM
In October, MGI Worldwide hosted their annual Global AGM in Rome, Italy. The conference featured everything from social and cultural activities to insightful speakers and workshops to enhanced interactions. Among many insightful speakers, our Tax Partner Richard Huffman was featured as one of AGM’s speakers over the course of the conference. This year, MGI Worldwide chose Richard Huffman as one of the partners with inspiring stories about the ways in which MGI membership has helped them and their businesses. Many of the other speakers, including Richard, featured stories of collaboration, tech innovation, automation and succession planning. Richard’s story in particular
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Three New Hires Join WFY’s Tax and Audit Departments
In October, our firm welcomed three new hires to our WFY team. Isaac Torres joined our tax department, and Samantha Smith and Amy Lee joined our audit department. WFY is pleased to have these three new hires join our firm. Isaac Torres At the end of October, Isaac Torres joined WFY’s tax department as our newest Tax Supervisor. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and received his Master’s degree in Accounting from California Baptist University. Isaac has been in the accounting industry for over 5 years. His accounting expertise includes real estate and food & beverage. Outside of
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California’s Unique, Little-Known Nest Egg Protection Statute
By Gregory Lambourne, Esq. Senior Planning Consultant Most Californians don’t realize they have access to one of the greatest protections for their retirement nest egg; Greater than protections available for 401(k)s, IRAs, and other pension plans. California Civil Procedure Code section 704.115(b) provides unlimited statutory exemption from lawsuits and creditor claims for assets held in trust pursuant to a “private retirement plan”. Understanding the intricacies of this statute, case law, and best practices is crucial to maximizing benefits and avoiding potential planning pitfalls. A California resident may have a company they own or work for sponsor a retirement plan
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Best Practices for 401(k) Plans Self-Certified Hardship Distributions
By Jennifer Haddad, CPA Audit Partner The Secure 2.0 Act of 2022 changed the rules for hardship withdrawals for employee benefit plans by allowing Plan Sponsors to rely on self-certification by an employee for a hardship withdrawal in lieu of requiring documentation. An employee must certify that they a) have an immediate and heavy financial need, b) the distribution is not greater than the financial need, c) the employee has no other means to meet the need, and c) the financial need is permitted by IRS regulations. This change has allowed Plan Sponsors to streamline the hardship distribution process,
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