#compliance
Navigate regulatory compliance and maintain audit-ready financial records
A 2026 LIHTC field guide for developers — how the 9% and 4% credits differ, how qualified basis and the 70%/30% present-value subsidies are calculated, the three overlapping compliance clocks, the IRS forms (8609, 8609-A, 8586, 8611), syndication mechanics, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changes that cut the bond financing test from 50% to 25%.
A practical walkthrough of the New Markets Tax Credit — how the 39% federal credit flows from a CDE to investors and projects over seven years, who plays which role, what continuous compliance requires, and where deals most often break.
Schedule UTP requires corporations with $10M+ in assets and an ASC 740-10 reserve to disclose uncertain tax positions on Form 1120. This guide covers who must file, how to rank major tax positions, what the concise description must include, the columns added for tax year 2022, and the drafting mistakes that trigger IRS Letter 5191.
How publicly traded U.S. corporations compute the 1% Section 4501 stock buyback excise tax in 2026, apply the netting rule, claim statutory exceptions, and file Form 7208 — including what the November 2025 final regulations changed and where Form 720-X refund opportunities apply.
A per-component breakdown of Section 45X credit rates, the OBBBA phase-out schedule for wind, solar, battery, and critical minerals, the new Prohibited Foreign Entity Material Assistance Cost Ratio test, and how to claim direct pay or transferability without losing the credit to documentation gaps.
Section 531 imposes a 20% accumulated earnings tax on C-corps that retain profits beyond a $250,000 credit ($150,000 for personal service firms) without specific, feasible plans. This guide explains the Bardahl working-capital formula, the Section 534 burden-of-proof statement, and the contemporaneous documentation that defends an accumulation in IRS audit.
Section 6418 lets clean energy developers sell federal tax credits to unrelated corporate buyers for cash, typically at a 6 to 15 percent discount to face value. A practical guide to registration, pricing, recapture risk, the 20 percent excessive transfer penalty, and how the OBBBA preserved transferability through the rest of the decade.
Section 7702A's 7-pay test reclassifies overfunded cash-value life insurance as a modified endowment contract, switching lifetime distributions to LIFO ordering, taxing policy loans as ordinary income, and adding a 10% penalty before age 59½. The classification is permanent and cannot be reversed after the 60-day refund window.
How Section 79 actually works in 2026 — the $50,000 employer-paid group-term life exclusion, the IRS Table I rates (unchanged since 1999) that turn excess coverage into W-2 Box 12 Code C imputed income, plus the straddle rule, the $2,000 dependent de minimis, and the 2% S-corp shareholder trap.
The IRS Voluntary Classification Settlement Program lets eligible employers reclassify 1099 workers as W-2 employees for roughly 1.068% of last year's compensation, with no interest, no penalties, and no employment-tax audit of prior years on those workers.
A payroll operations guide to wage garnishment: how to calculate disposable earnings under the CCPA, apply the correct caps for creditor, child support, IRS, and student loan orders, prioritize multiple orders on one paycheck, and keep records that hold up under audit.
How Applicable Large Employers file Forms 1094-C and 1095-C for the 2025 reporting year. Covers the March 2 and March 31, 2026 deadlines, the post-2024 furnishing-on-request rule, the 2026 penalty amounts ($3,340 and $5,010 per employee), the new 90-day Letter 226-J response window, and the Line 14/16 coding errors that most often trigger IRS audits.
