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Tax Law Updates and Adapting to Major Changes Like the "One Big Beautiful Bill"
- Analyze recently enacted tax legislation and apply new tax laws with confidence.
- Develop practical, tax-saving strategies tailored to your clients' needs.
- Differentiate between major legislative acts and understand their key provisions.
- Adapt your practice to successfully navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the latest tax changes.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 100 minutes
- Prerequisite
- None
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
Staying up-to-date with the latest tax laws is essential for tax professionals to adapt effectively and maintain a competitive edge. Understanding new legislation and updates enables you to deliver superior service to your clients and set yourself apart from those who fall behind on evolving tax issues. This session will highlight key tax updates for the 2025 tax year, with a special focus on major legislation such as the "One Big Beautiful Bill." You'll receive the latest clarifications and critical updates covering Individual, Business, Estate, and Gift Tax topics.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
Converting a Single-Member LLC (SMLLC) from Schedule C to Form 1120-S (S Corporation)
- Differentiate between the tax treatment of a Schedule C sole proprietorship and an S Corporation.
- Identify the legal and procedural requirements for electing S Corporation status for an SMLLC, including deadlines and use of Form 2553.
- Explain the tax implications of S Corporation status on self-employment tax, reasonable compensation, and payroll requirements.
- List the ongoing compliance requirements for S Corporations, including reasonable salary, payroll filings, and corporate formalities (e.g., minutes, bylaws).
- Evaluate when a conversion is appropriate based on client-specific factors, such as income level, administrative capacity, business goals, and state-specific rules.
- Detect and respond to red flags that could disqualify or undermine an S election—and understand how to withdraw an election, if necessary, before the first S Corporation return is due.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 100 minutes
- Prerequisite
- General understanding of federal tax law
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
This session will guide participants through the process of converting a Single-Member LLC (SMLLC)—taxed as a sole proprietorship (Schedule C)—into an entity taxed as an S Corporation (Form 1120-S). Participants will learn the key legal, tax, and administrative steps for making the S election, including filing Form 2553, and how to prepare for the post-election compliance landscape. Special attention will be given to critical but often-overlooked pitfalls. The session is designed for tax professionals, accountants, and small business owners who are considering or advising on this transition.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
Schedule C Filer Deep Dive
- Identify who must file a Schedule C and distinguish between a business and a hobby for tax purposes.
- Accurately complete Schedule C line by line, focusing on compliance and clarity.
- Apply current IRS rules and guidance related to deductible business expenses, including: o Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) o Vehicle and home office expenses o Travel, meals, and entertainment
- Evaluate proper bookkeeping and documentation practices for Schedule C clients.
- Analyze common red flags and audit risks, especially those related to high deductions or net losses.
- Explain how self-employment tax is calculated and reported via Schedule SE.
- Advise clients on effective tax planning strategies, including estimated tax payments and entity structure considerations.
- ntegrate recent tax law changes—such as the Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction—into client scenarios.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 100 minutes
- Prerequisite
- General understanding of federal tax law
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
This session offers an in-depth examination of Schedule C (Form 1040), used by sole proprietors and single-member LLCs to report income or loss from a business. Participants will walk through the form line by line, explore common and complex tax issues faced by small business filers, and discuss best practices for compliance. Designed for tax professionals, this session will enhance your ability to serve self-employed clients with confidence. Attendees will analyze case studies, identify audit triggers, and explore tax planning strategies relevant to Schedule C filers. Key topics include allowable deductions, recordkeeping requirements, business use of home and vehicle, distinguishing a business from a hobby, and recent IRS updates.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
Building Ethics Within a Modern Firm – Ethics with Cocktails
- Apply a practical ethics framework to common tax-practice scenarios, distinguishing between acceptable professional judgment, aggressive positions requiring disclosure, and issues that require refusal, withdrawal, or disengagement.
- Identify and respond to high-risk client behaviors and fact patterns, including omitted income, unverifiable credits, fabricated documentation, identity concerns, and unreasonable pressure on the preparer.
- Implement defensible documentation and communication practices, including engagement terms, scope limits, interview notes, follow-up requests, and client messaging.
- Recognize confidentiality, privacy, and data-protection obligations in everyday workflows and align office procedures with ethical expectations.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 100 minutes
- Prerequisite
- None
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
This practical, scenario-driven ethics session is built for tax professionals who want guidance they can apply immediately. Using realistic client situations drawn from everyday practice—pressure to "make the numbers work," incomplete documentation, questionable dependents, aggressive positions, fee and scope disputes, and data/privacy concerns—attendees will work through how to respond ethically, document the file, and protect the firm. The course connects professional responsibility standards, including Circular 230 expectations, preparer due diligence, and confidentiality rules, to real-world workflow decisions so practitioners can build repeatable habits that reduce complaints, penalties, and reputational risk.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
Taxpayers in Trouble - COD
- Select relevant information from Forms 1099-A and 1099-C.
- Identify the proper IRS form on which to report the deemed sale of the foreclosed property.
- Determine if a taxpayer is insolvent.
- Explain the tax treatment of cancellation credit card and other consumer debt.
- Complete Form 982.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 100 minutes
- Prerequisite
- None
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
Forms 1099-C and 1099-A often give the tax professionals a headache. The taxpayer doesn't understand them and may have emotional baggage attached to their sources. Many tax pros are also handling them the wrong way on the tax return. Let's look at both forms with the receiver being the individual, small business, corporation, and partnership. Form 982 could come into play, so we'll take a look at it, too. The media and government officials would like us to believe taxpayers are not in as much of a financial crisis and the housing industry breakdown is over, but we know differently as our clients are still coming in with 1099-As and 1099-Cs.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
ATGs – Audit Technique Guides – A Tool We Overlook
- Utilize the ATGs for information on tax related issues pertaining to various industries.
- Understand the guidance on accounting for income and deductions industry specific.
- Learn in what manner the examination of income, interview techniques and evaluation of evidence.
- Develop a strategy using ATGs to improve your communications with clients.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 50 minutes
- Prerequisite
- None
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
Audit Techniques Guides (ATGs) help IRS examiners during audits by providing insight into issues and accounting methods unique to specific industries. While ATGs are designed to provide guidance for IRS employees, they're also useful to tax professionals who prepare returns. ATGs explain industry-specific examination techniques and include common, as well as, unique industry issues, business practices and terminology. Guidance is also provided on the examination of income, interview techniques and evaluation of evidence. So they may be helpful for business and tax planning purposes. Let's take a look at several common industries and show you how to use them as beneficial tools in your practice.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
Distributions Demystified: Mastering Form 7217
- Determine when Form 7217 is required, including the separate-form-per-distribution-date rule, and identify when it is not required, such as cash-only distributions or marketable securities treated as money.
- Build a defensible Form 7217 workpaper package by reconstructing outside basis immediately before the distribution and tying it to the form's Part I aggregate math and Part II per-asset reporting, including K-1 Box 19 Code C inputs.
- Apply §732 limitation and allocation mechanics to real-world distributions using a case-study approach, including correctly reflecting when inside basis exceeds remaining outside basis and how that affects Part II basis outcomes.
- Identify and mitigate high-frequency pitfalls that trigger notices or examination risk, including missing distribution dates, skipping the form when property is distributed, lack of an outside basis schedule, improper §732(c) allocation logic, incorrect §743(b) box usage, and answering "Yes" to §751(b) without the required computation statement.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 50 minutes
- Prerequisite
- General understanding of federal tax law
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
Form 7217 is the IRS's way of forcing the partner to tell a complete, consistent "basis story" when a partnership distributes property. In this fast-paced, practitioner-focused session, we will translate the statutory framework into a repeatable preparation workflow: confirming it is a Form 7217 event, determining when a separate form is required for multiple distribution dates, capturing K-1 Box 19 Code C property details, and—most importantly—reconstructing outside basis immediately before the distribution, because it is not on the K-1. Using short case studies, we will work through the heights—clean compliance and defensible allocations under §732—and the pitfalls that create avoidable exposure: skipping the form when property, not just cash, is distributed; missing distribution dates; misallocating basis when the §732 limitation applies; failing to address §751(b) hot-asset recharacterization; and incorrectly handling §734(b) and §743(b) adjustment flags tied to §754 elections.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
PARTNERSHIPS: FILLING IN THE KNOWLEDGE GAPS
- Summarize the tax implications of the centralized partnership audit regime.
- Identify built-in-gain property under §704 (c) and recognize the potential tax effects.
- Allocate partnership liabilities.
- Compare and contrast the partner's tax basis capital account with their basis in the partnership.
- Summarize the rules for making a §754 election and the resulting tax consequences.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 100 minutes
- Prerequisite
- General understanding of federal tax law
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
In the past couple of years, the IRS has added some new line items on Form 1065 and Schedule K-1 that raise several questions. For example, can or should the partnership elect out of the centralized partnership audit regime? If they do not make the election, what does that mean? What is §704 (c) gain or (loss)? Why doesn't the partner's basis in the partnership equal their capital account? In this session, we will cover these concepts and more to fill in the gaps with respect to partnerships.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
1099 – The Tattletale!
- Identify the principal Forms 1099 needed for small business.
- Establish who is to receive 1099s and when backup withholding is required.
- Identify the various penalties associated with Form 1099 reporting.
- Cover the 'real world' issues involving compliance with Form 1099 reporting.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 50 minutes
- Prerequisite
- General understanding of federal tax law
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
So why are 1099s so important? Why is the IRS increasing the penalties for not filing them or not correcting them? Their singular objective is to let the IRS know how much was paid to someone by a small business. They tattle information to the IRS! We have to assist our small businesses in issuing those 1099 MISC/NEC but are you sure you know the rules? Recent legislation changes the reporting requirements for Forms 1099 MISC and NEC. Don't make mistakes that contribute to mismatched income for small business taxpayers. Let's learn what those 1099 reporting rules are. You might be surprised to learn that some of those reporting rules have changed since you last looked.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
SE TAX – WHAT YOU PROBABLY DON'T KNOW BUT SHOULD
- Identify if the taxpayer should exercise this option.
- Learn what credits interact and their calculation.
- Analyze the tax return for determining viable use of the SE options.
- Calculate the amounts when using the SE options.
- Understand the upper and lower limits of Social Security Coverage.
- Instructor
- Melinda Garvin, EA
- Duration
- 50 minutes
- Prerequisite
- General understanding of federal tax law
- Advanced preparation
- None
- Delivery method
- Group Live
Description
Self-employed workers must pay both the employee and employer portions of Social Security taxes. Reducing their income by taking every available deduction will reduce income taxes, but it will also reduce the size of their Social Security benefit payment in retirement. It is possible the taxpayer would be unable to draw disability also. We can help! We also need to be checking all our clients that fall into this category. Sometimes qualifying credits can even help pay the tax. Attend this session to ensure you are doing the best for your Schedule C and Schedule F clients using case studies to learn the calculation of these options.
Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Details
CPE sponsor disclosure
The CPE associated with this education is provided by the Iowa NATP Chapter and is independent of national NATP sponsorship.
IRS sponsor number: VGTXU
See our CPE sponsor page for more information on reporting.