NEPA CPA Community
Briefs, articles, glossary, and guides—general education for the community. Not individualized tax advice.
Latest briefs
-
United States Tax Court T.C. Memo. 2026-20 JEFFREY PESARIK, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
The Tax Court allowed only a fraction of the renovation costs Pesarik claimed for his Wakefield property and denied the entire §121 exclusion on his Hull property sale, resulting in combined taxable gains far exceeding what he reported or d…
-
Tens of Millions of Taxpayers May Be Eligible for Significant Tax Refunds – If They Act by July 10 (Part I)
The National Taxpayer Advocate is flagging a July 10, 2026 deadline for taxpayers who may be owed refunds on returns where the IRS automatically assessed penalties or made adjustments during the pandemic-era backlog period. The core issue i…
Recently published
Newest articles—explore by topic from Explore or search anytime.
-
Client Portal Requirement: Why All Document Exchange Stays in the Portal
All document exchange at NEPA CPA goes through the client portal. Tax documents, financial records, and supporting materials sent as email attachments or as links to third-party storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox will not be accepted. Email is not a secure or auditable document channel, and no workaround changes that. All communication containing sensitive financial data or account-specific detail belongs in the portal as well, even when the subject matter does not feel sensitive -- staff assigned to your engagement access what they need there, and anything sent outside the portal risks not reaching the right person or getting lost entirely. The requirement applies to every engagement without exception. Clients who are unable or unwilling to use the portal are not a fit for this firm.
-
Account Verification and Records: How to Access Your File and What Happens When You Call or Email
When you contact the firm by phone or email asking about your account, a tax return, or any record, you will be directed to the client portal. This is not a refusal to help. It is a consistent policy applied to every request because identity cannot be reliably verified over those channels. Your tax returns and documents are delivered to and stored in the portal at app.nepacpa.com. If you can log in, you can download what you need immediately. If you cannot log in, the portal has an account recovery option. Portal access is not reset by phone or email. Questions about your account should be submitted through the portal so the firm is responding to a verified account holder.
-
Estimated Tax Payments for First-Year Business Owners: What You Need to Know Before You Owe
When your income comes from a business you own, whether as a sole proprietor, a single-member LLC, or an owner of a partnership or S corporation, no federal tax is withheld for you the way it is from a paycheck. Under §6654, the U.S. tax system still requires that tax to be paid in as the income is earned, so the obligation to pay quarterly falls on you as an individual. The first year of ownership creates a specific planning problem: the prior-year safe harbor under §6654 may not reflect any business income at all, which means your estimates have to be built from a current-year projection with real uncertainty baked in. If your household also has W-2 income, your spouse's withholding counts toward the same safe-harbor tests when you file jointly, which changes the calculation. And if you co-own the business with others, you cannot assume anyone else is managing your personal payments for you. This article explains the framework so you know what questions to ask and when to bring a CPA into the conversation before a penalty accrues.
-
Why Did My Return Include Estimated Tax Payments, and Do I Have to Make Them?
When the firm prepares your return, it often includes estimated tax payment vouchers for the coming year. Those vouchers are not a bill, not a notice from the IRS, and not a sign that something went wrong. The US tax system requires income that is not subject to withholding to be paid in during the year as it is earned, and the vouchers are a safe-harbor tool sized off your prior-year figures to keep you out of underpayment penalties and to prevent a large balance at filing. You are not required to mail those exact vouchers, but the underlying tax is owed regardless, and skipping payments without a plan reintroduces both the penalty and the lump-sum balance the vouchers were designed to avoid. If your income has changed materially since last year, or if you are also managing an IRS installment agreement, contact the firm before adjusting or skipping a payment.
-
Why Won't You Confirm My Account or Send My Records Over Email or Phone?
The firm will not confirm or deny whether any named individual is a client over email or phone, and it will not discuss account details or release records through those channels. Both a confirmation and a denial disclose protected information to a person whose identity cannot be verified. Email addresses and phone numbers can be impersonated, and a caller's voice or a sender's name is not proof of identity. Because of this, the firm applies the same rule to every request, regardless of how legitimate it sounds. All account discussion and all records, including copies of tax returns, are available only through the secure client portal.
-
Why Did Our Firm Stop Responding to My Inquiry?
When a new inquiry reaches our firm, it goes through a security screening process before anyone invests time in a conversation. That screening is intentionally conservative, and when an inquiry accumulates enough risk signals, the firm stops communicating with that contact permanently and without explanation. This is a deliberate data-protection posture, not a personal judgment. CPA firms hold sensitive financial data for many clients, and protecting that data is the firm's first obligation. A conservative screening system will occasionally flag people who have entirely legitimate needs, and the firm accepts that tradeoff knowingly. The decision, once made, is final.
-
I Rent Out My Property but Also Use It Myself Part of the Year - How Is It Taxed?
When you rent out a property but also use it personally for part of the year, the IRS applies a special set of rules under Section 280A that can significantly limit your ability to deduct rental expenses. The key question is whether your personal use crosses a threshold that causes the IRS to classify the property as a residence rather than a pure rental. Once that line is crossed, your rental deductions are capped at your rental income, and a net loss is not allowed. How you allocate expenses between personal and rental use - and in what order you deduct them - determines exactly what you can and cannot write off. There is also a narrow exception that excludes rental income entirely if you rent the property for 14 days or fewer in a year. Understanding these rules before you file can prevent costly errors and missed planning opportunities.
-
How Does Form 1040 Actually Work, From Top to Bottom?
Form 1040 is the federal income tax return that most individuals file each year, and its job is straightforward even if it does not look that way at first glance. The form starts with everything you earned, walks through a series of subtractions and additions, and lands on one final number showing either a refund or a balance due. Each block on the form builds on the one before it, so once you understand the flow, the whole thing starts to make sense. This article follows that flow from the top of the page to the bottom, explaining what each section is doing and where the numbers come from. Because the IRS adjusts dollar amounts and occasionally renumbers lines from year to year, this article describes each part of the form by name rather than by line number, so the concepts stay useful no matter which tax year you are looking at. Confirm current-year figures with your CPA or at IRS.gov. Nothing here is legal or tax advice for your specific situation.
-
Can a Retirement Account Lower My Taxes If I'm Self-Employed?
If you file a Schedule C and your tax bill came in higher than expected, a self-employed retirement account is one of the strongest legitimate tools available to you. Money contributed to a traditional retirement plan is deducted from your income before income tax is calculated, which shrinks the taxable base and lowers your effective rate. That said, it does not touch self-employment tax, which is calculated on your business earnings before any retirement deduction is applied. The money is tax-deferred rather than tax-free, meaning contributions and growth are taxed as ordinary income when you withdraw them in retirement. Several plan types are available to self-employed people, and the right one depends on your income, whether you have employees, and how much cash flow you can realistically set aside. A CPA can model the specific numbers for your situation.
-
I Always Got a Refund Before I Got Married - Why Do We Owe Now?
If you always got a refund before and now you owe, the most likely reason is that your spouse's self-employment income had no tax withheld from it during the year. The tax taken out of your paycheck is not a separate tax - it is a prepayment toward one shared tax bill, and it was only ever sized for your income alone. When self-employment income gets added to the same joint return, the household's total tax bill grows but the prepayments do not grow with it, leaving a gap at filing. You are not being taxed twice, and you did not do anything wrong. This article explains exactly what happened and gives you two practical ways to close that gap before next April.