ISSUE NO. 56 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY The money you can pull out of your company that never gets taxed. Samy Basta, CPA Lisa runs a small architecture firm here in the Bay Area. Six people. Good year behind her. We hopped on a Zoom call and she said, "Samy, I'm making money now. But it feels like every dollar gets taxed twice. Payroll takes a cut. Then I pull cash out and it gets hit again. Is this just how it works?" I asked her one...
13 days ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 55 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY Stop your staff from draining their retirement on a bad week. Samy Basta, CPA Lisa runs a small architecture studio here in the Bay Area. Eight people. Good ones. She called me last month, rattled. "My best project architect just pulled money out of his 401(k)," she said. "His kid had a medical thing. He didn't have the cash. So he raided his retirement and ate the penalty." She felt awful. She pays...
20 days ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 54 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY Your Equipment List Might Be Costing You More Than You Think Samy Basta, CPA A construction business owner asked me a simple question last week. “Why are we still paying property tax on equipment we don’t even use anymore?” Good question. And honestly, this happens more than people think. In California, business property tax is not just about real estate. Counties can also tax business personal...
27 days ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 53 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY The 20% Penalty for Sitting on Your Own Cash Samy Basta, CPA Carlos called me last month. He runs a property management company here in the Bay Area. Good business. Steady. He told me his plan, proud of it. "I leave the profit inside the company. I don't pull it out. That way I don't pay tax on it personally. Smart, right?" He had about four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000) just sitting in the...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 52 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY A New Court Case Pushes Back on California’s Tax Reach Samy Basta, CPA I was talking with Lisa, who works with clients in different states. She asked me a question I hear all the time. “Samy, if I do work outside California, but the customer is connected to California, can California tax me?” My answer was simple. Maybe. But not just because California says so. That is why the Garcia-Rojas v....
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 51 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY You're already paying for it. You're just not getting paid back. Samy Basta, CPA Tom runs a design-build firm here in the Bay Area. Sharp guy. Good books. Last month he sat across from me and said, "I drive all over for site visits. I work out of my spare bedroom half the week. My cell phone is basically a second office. None of that shows up anywhere on my taxes." I asked him one question. "Tom, are...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 50 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY Why giving away your old fleet might cost you more than selling it Samy Basta, CPA That truck sitting in your yard? The IRS already wrote it off. You should too. Here’s a mistake that costs construction owners every year: assuming a donated truck is a tax win. You’ve got a fleet of work trucks. They’ve hauled equipment, logged miles, taken a beating. You’ve depreciated every dollar out of them. Now...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
ISSUE NO. 49 WEEKLY CFO BRIEF A practical weekly field note from Basta CPA. THIS WEEK'S STORY The $360K Trap: When Your Business Outgrows Your Back Office Samy Basta, CPA Met with an architect last week. Boutique firm in the Bay Area. Grew from $200K to $360K in a few years. Targeting $2M projects now. Smart guy. Great work. Talented team. But here's what I heard between the lines: the back office hasn't caught up to the front office. Basic bookkeeping. No active retirement plan. Solo 401(k)...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Samy Basta, CPA Issue No. 48 CFO WEEKLY BRIEF Straight Talk for Small Business Owners: Real Strategies. Real Results. Every year, a lot of California S corp and partnership owners ask the same question: “Should we make the passthrough entity tax payment?” For a while, the answer was almost automatic: yes. The PTE tax helped business owners work around the federal SALT cap. The business paid California tax at the entity level, got a federal deduction, and the owner received a California tax...
2 months ago • 3 min read