Co-Authors Sunil Patel and Jason Booth Internal Revenue Service Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets, has been one of the primary reporting mechanisms imposed directly on taxpayers under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which is designed to enhance tax reporting compliance with respect to certain foreign assets. Form 8938 is used t [...]

Co-authors: Brianne Cannon, Lauren Haverlock, Mari-Anne Kehler and Anita Wu At GHJ, we believe every day is a chance to #BeMore. Not do more. Not work more. Instead, we encourage one another to be the best we can be and enjoy life to the fullest. With our commitment to anytime/anywhere work, our support of flexible work environments and our passion for health and wel [...]

History Since its inception in 2001, many taxpayers have used the Qualified Leasehold Improvements (QLI) designation as an effective tax planning strategy to help accelerate depreciation and recover the cost of certain improvements over a shorter period of time. For improvements that qualify, the recovery period is reduced from 39 years to 15 years. The improvement is [...]

Liam is 21 and has two weekly volunteer jobs: helping care for to-be-adopted cats and making/delivering lunch to Meals on Wheels clients. It is not so unusual, I guess, for a man to be so passionate about giving back to his community. Except this one thing about Liam: he was diagnosed with severe autism before age 2. He also happens to be my son. When Liam was diag [...]

Last year I was lucky enough to attend the Food Bytes Summit in San Francisco hosted by Rabobank. Besides the great venue of a craft brewery and distillery, the energy in the room was electric. The goal of the summit is to provide a platform for innovative food startups to showcase their product and to help facilitate connections that would hopefully lead to seed fund [...]

The definition of vertical integration is as follows: “The combination in one company of two or more stages of production normally operated by separate companies.”Many of us are familiar with “vertical integration” and see it on a regular basis – most recognizably in the areas of communications and technology. For example, phone companies (such as Apple and Verizon) v [...]

“Work life balance” and “flex schedule” are two phrases that have been thrown around and overused in the accounting profession for years. In concept they are great. They provide opportunity for me to fit more things into my day. I can now work my 10+ hour day, take the kids to school, have a greater amount of family time, volunteer, coach, go to the gym, read a book, [...]

While California is on the mend from a drought (we can only hope the rain continues to help replenish our lakes and rivers), many other parts of the country are drowning. Louisiana is recovering from what the National Weather Service is calling a “1,000-year rain” that flooded the area for three days leaving houses, industry and farmland devastated. Louisiana is known [...]

In our previous blog, No Strings Attached, we discussed the importance of unrestricted general operating support from grant makers. However, general operating support may not be the best – or only way – to assist every grantee organization. Instead of, or in addition to a grant, program-related investment (PRI) sometimes makes sense. If you haven’t ventured into prog [...]

There have been numerous discussions about the economic pros and cons of a phased-in $15 wage floor but not that many around the practical application, so I thought I’d share a recent situation I encountered. Background: On January 1, 2017, the minimum wage in California increased to $10.50 per hour for employers with 26 employees or more (a large employer). Questio [...]