Tate, Propp, Beggs & Sugimoto, an Accountancy Corporation, provides audit, accounting, tax and financial advisory services to individuals, privately held businesses, and tax-exempt organizations. We take pride in offering high quality, personalized service to all our clients.

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, signed into law by President Bush on February 13, 2008, will generally provide rebate checks worth up to $600 to individuals and $1,200 for families, plus $300 per child. The bill also provides incentives to small businesses. See our full article on the Tax Articles page.

2007 Year-end Payroll Letter

Employers, it is time to update your payroll files and review your records for Form 1099 requirements. See our year-end Payroll Letter for current rates and information.

2007 Year-end Tax Reduction Opportunities

As 2007 draws to a close, there is still time to reduce your 2007 tax bill and plan ahead for 2008. Our year-end letter highlights potential tax-saving opportunities for you to consider. See the full letter on the Tax Preparation Articles page.

2007 Year-end Estate and Gift Tax Planning

It does not appear that the federal estate tax will be eliminated in the near future. Although there are various estimates as to what level of estate tax might be retained, there are many future political and economic occurrences yet to unfold, that could ultimately affect the level of federal estate tax that we are left with. This being the case, there are several relatively simple planning possibilities that can be implemented before the end of the year that will serve to reduce potential estate taxes. See our full article on the Family Wealth Advisors Articles page.

New Auditing Standards

"During 2005, the Auditing Standards Board issued ten new standards that not only revised the fundamental building blocks of auditing but also introduced a comprehensive audit methodology that differs in subtle but powerful ways from the methodology used for the past three decades by the majority of audit firms."

In 2006, another new auditing standard affecting audit engagements went into effect for all financial statement audits for periods ending on or after December 15, 2006. This new standard requires evaluation and communication of certain deficiencies in internal controls identified during the audit.

For an overview of these standards and how they may affect your audit, see articles on the Audit and Accounting Articles page.

Diversification and Your Portfolio

Diversification: Spreading of risk by putting assets in several categories of investments; stocks, bonds, money market instruments, and precious metals for instance, or several industries, or a mutual fund, with its broad range of stocks.

The following is a simplified example illustrating how diversification can work within an investment portfolio.....this article continues on our Family Wealth Advisors Articles page.

The Family Partnership

If properly structured, the use of the family partnership as a planning tool can create income tax and estate tax savings.  Also, there can be nontax succession planning benefits for family-owned businesses that adopt the family partnership. This article continues on our Family Wealth Advisors Articles page.