Insights

Moonlighting and Locums Income: The Mistake I See Most is the piece I send most often to physicians. A hospital W-2 plus 1099 shifts, a locums assignment, or an expert witness engagement makes you a sole proprietor on Schedule C and Schedule SE, whether or not you ever filed anything to become one. The mistake is rarely a missed deduction. It is that the 1099 stream got treated as extra pay for eleven months, so the tax on it, the timing of that tax, and the retirement account it could have funded were all decided by default.

1099 or W-2: Why the Classification Actually Matters is the engineering version of the same territory. Classification turns on control, not on what the contract says, and the same person can be a legitimate contractor on one project and an employee on the next. It covers what actually changes when the income arrives on a 1099, and how to price a rate that accounts for it instead of discovering the gap in April.

Quarterly Estimated Taxes, in Plain English is the mechanics of paying it on time: who genuinely owes estimates, why the four quarters are not equal lengths, how the safe harbor protects you even in a year you owe a lot in April, and why the penalty is really just interest.

The Home Office Deduction: What Actually Qualifies turns on two words in the IRS rule: exclusive and regular. The dining table you also eat at fails both. It compares the simplified method ($5 per square foot, 300 square feet maximum, $1,500 cap) against the regular method and the depreciation you recapture when you sell the house. It also says plainly that a W-2 employee generally gets nothing here, because the TCJA suspended unreimbursed employee business expenses.

What to Do When You Get an IRS Notice covers the first 48 hours. Find the notice number in the upper right corner before you read anything else, because it tells you what kind of letter this is. A CP2000 is not an audit and not a bill. Then the response date, what it actually controls, and when it is worth signing a Form 2848 so I can talk to the IRS on your behalf instead of you doing it.

What Actually Triggers an Audit separates the fear from the mechanism. In fiscal year 2025 the IRS closed 497,621 examinations of every kind while the automated matching program closed 987,460 cases, per the IRS Data Book. Document matching runs at roughly twice the volume of auditing. It is a different problem and it takes a different fix.

Which Tax Records to Keep, and For How Long is the one to read before you throw anything out. Three years is the default. Four exceptions extend it, and the basis records tied to an asset you still own follow a different rule entirely, one that outlives every retention window on the list.

When You Need a CPA, and When You Honestly Don't argues against hiring me in a good share of the situations it describes. One W-2 and the standard deduction is a software return, and I will tell you that on the call. The line where filing becomes judgment rather than data entry sits further out than most firms admit, and the article says where I think it actually is. There is more on that at who this practice fits.

How to Switch Accountants Without It Being Awkward handles the part people dread for no reason. There is no exit interview, no release form, no notice requirement, and no need for your old preparer's cooperation. It is a document handoff. The article covers what to bring, what you do not need, how a mid-year switch works, and when amending a prior return is worth the trouble.