THOMAS HOANG, CPA-MBA has been located at 2421 Milam, Houston, Texas 77006 offers different services in I.R.A.'s, mutual funds, licensing, real estate, accounting, tax returns for individuals and businesses. Firstly, it has operated as sole owner since 1987 and as corporation since 01/01/2009. It serves a wide variety of clients, from individuals, to partnerships, to mid-sized businesses, and to large corporations. It was dedicated to provide the most complete and highest valued service possible for every client. It always maintains the highest level of integrity with all clients, works effectively, and strives for being efficient to serve all clients. That is why it can serve more than 100 businesses during the year and more than 600 seasonal clients for preparing tax returns.
II. WHY I JOIN TO THOMAS HOANG, CPA-MBA IN FALL 2010 SEMESTER:
To apply the theories from school into the real cases and to have more chance to learn new software used to do bookkeeping, payrolls, tax returns, franchise taxes and to have more practical experiences, I decided to take advantage of joining THOMAS HOANG, CPA-MBA to work and study in this Fall 2010 semester.
MY MAJOR JOBS:
I mainly do bookkeeping and payroll for businesses, file sales tax reports for businesses, prepare income tax returns for individuals, prepare income tax returns for corporations and partnerships, and file franchise taxes for businesses.
III. WHAT I DID & LEARNT DURING AT THOMAS HOANG, CPA-MBA:
1. Bookkeeping:
With QUICK BOOK software, I can create new file for a new corporation or entry details of transactions relating to incomes including gross sales, rental incomes, interest incomes, dividends, commissions, capital gains, . . . and expenses including merchandise purchases, compensation of officers, salaries and wages of employees, advertising fees, rental expenses, repairs & maintenance fees, legal & professional fees, insurances, utilities expenses (electricity, gas, telephone, and water), office supplies, licenses fees, federal income tax, payroll taxes, property taxes, pest control expenses, bank charges, credit card fees, alarm and security fees, trash collection fees, penalties. . . from bank statements, and print out those businesses' profit and loss reports and financial statements.
With Microsoft Excel, I can create the spread-sheets including monthly incomes and expenses for businesses.
From those reports, I can classify and pick up which expenses can be deducted in tax returns and which expenses cannot be deducted as Internal Revenue Service' s tax law.
2. Payroll:
With 1099-ETC software, I can create the separate files for businesses to prepare payroll for their employees including:
- printing weekly, biweekly, monthly net paycheck of businesses' employees,
- preparing & printing out the monthly payroll reports or quarterly payroll reports:
. Form 941: to send to IRS, PO BOX 105083, ATLANTA, GA 30348 before 1st of November for the 3rd quarter payroll report of 2010.
. Form TWC: to send to TEXAS WORKFORCE COMMISSION, P.O. BOX 149037, AUSTIN, TX 78714 before 1st of November for the 3rd quarterly payroll report of 2010.
Based on output data of payroll reports, I can login website
- https://m06hostp.twc.state.tx.us/UITAXSERV/security/logon.do to file and pay tax online,
- and https://www.eftps.gov/eftps/login.do to deposit the dues of form 941 for businesses weekly, biweekly, or monthly. It depends on how much is for tax liability every week, every 2 weeks, or every month.
3. Sales Tax:
I need to collect purchase invoices, daily sales reports to verify total sales, taxable sales and taxable purchases with owners, presidents, or managers. This step is very important to report correct sale tax amount collected before filing sales tax report on the website:
- http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxforms/01-117.pdf to file sales tax for entities/corporations for entities and corporations to send sales tax report to Texas State Comptroller by paper with checks by mail before 21st of each month for monthly sales tax due or before 21st of October for 3rd quarter sales tax due,
- and https://ecpa.cpa.state.tx.us/salestax/TaxDue.jsp?searchi=Tax%20Due to file sales tax online & pay sales tax balance online before 21st of each month for monthly sales tax dues or before 21st of November for 3rd quarter sales tax dues.
4. Tax returns for individuals:
I had a chance to apply the theories from Individual Income Tax Course and worked out on PROSERIES09 for preparing paper and online individual income tax returns from the simple to complicated cases which were filed extension after April 15, 2010 such as
- taxpayers with different filling statuses such as single, married filing jointly, married filing separately, or qualifying widower without children have:
* income(s) from W2 of taxpayer working in Texas and working out of Texas, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, gambling winning (1099-G), 1099-MISC, business income - net income from schedule C, alimony, capital gain/loss from schedule D, rental real estate, partnerships, S corporations from schedule K1, trusts from schedule E, unemployment compensation, IRA distributions, Social Security Benefits, . . .
* deduction(s) for personal property taxes, mortgage interest, gift to charity, gambling loss filed in schedule A - Itemized deductions, student loan and interest deduction, and tuition and fees deductions.
* and credit(s) such as education credits, earn income credits.
- taxpayers with different filling statuses such as married filing jointly, married filing separately, head of household or qualifying widower with children have:
* income(s) from W2 of taxpayer working in Texas and working out of Texas, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, gambling winning (1099-G), 1099-MISC, business income - net income from schedule C, alimony, capital gain/loss from schedule D, rental real estate, partnerships, S corporations from schedule K1, trusts from schedule E, unemployment compensation, IRA distributions, Social Security Benefits, . . .
* deduction(s) for personal property taxes, mortgage interest, gift to charity, gambling loss filed in schedule A - itemized deductions, student loan and interest deduction, and tuition and fee deductions.
* and credit(s) such as education credit, earn income credit, child tax credit, credit for the child and dependent care expenses, credit for the disabled.
5. Tax returns for businesses:
From reports of QUICKBOOK software, incomes, merchant purchase, and expenses were picked and filed into form 1120, 1120S, or 1065. The due date of corporation income tax, form 1120 or form 1120 S was 03/15/2010, and the due date of partnership income tax return, form 1065, was 04/15/2010. If those tax returns were not filed before due date, Form Application For Automatic Extension Of Time To File Certain Business Income Tax, Information, And Other Returns was requested and mailed to IRS before March 15, 2010 to have 6 months more to file those kinds of tax returns.
- Form 1120 with Schedule A, C, E, J, K, L, M-1, M-2 are requested to send to IRS with payment of tax due before September 15, 2010 with payment of tax due, if having.
- Form 1120 S with Schedule A, B, K, G, L, M-1, M-2, K1 (s) are requested to send to IRS before September 15, 2010.
- Form 1065 with Schedule A, B, G, K, G, L, M-1, M-2, K1 (s) are requested to send to IRS with tax payment before October 15, 2010.
Those above forms have:
* incomes from gross sales, dividends, interests, gross rents, capital net income from schedule D and other incomes such as lottery commission, cigarette commission, check cashing commission, ATM commission and insurance compensations,
* deductions which can be claimed such as merchandise purchases, compensation of officers, salaries and wages of employees, advertising fees, rental expenses, repairs & maintenance fees, legal & professional fees, insurances, utilities expenses (electricity, gas, telephone, water), office supplies, licenses fees, payroll taxes (TWC, 941, 940), property taxes, bank service charge, credit card fees, and interest pay out.
6. Franchise tax: Franchise tax dues on May 15, 2010. Franchise tax reports of corporations need to be filed every year even there is no income. If not to be filed, that corporation status is not good standing. If a corporation's franchise tax report was not filed before 05/15/2010, Extension form needs to be prepared, and then submits online or by mail to Comptroller of Public Accounts to have 6 months more to file Franchise tax at below address:
TEXAS COMPTROLLER OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
Franchise Tax Processing
Austin, TX 78711
- I can login website http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxforms/NDannual10.pdf to file franchise tax report with EZ form or long form for different business sizes before mailing to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts as above address,
- and website http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/franchise/webfile_franchise.html
to file franchise tax report and payment of tax due online for businesses. Texas Comptroller encourages taxpayers to file and pay online. This can save time and papers.
IV. DISCOVER MYSELF:
Each case of tax returns which I filed helped me to memorize the theories I learnt at school and I knew more details from different forms which need to be filed in reality. For example each filing status such as single, married filing jointly, married filing separately, qualifying widower, or head of household legally, taxpayers get different deduction amount; total itemized deductions bigger than standard deduction should be applied in line 40 of form 1040; taxpayer's spouse having no social security number cannot get exemption deduction; the kinds of expenses can be claimed in tax returns; the state tax for earning from out of Texas will be determined by how long taxpayers worked out of state; taxpayers with very high taxable income have to mail or deposit online 4 estimated tax payments, first payment before April 15, second before June 15, third payment before September 15 and fourth payment before January 15 to avoid any penalty and interest later; as well as which children of taxpayers can get are child tax credits.
From working on bookkeeping, payroll, sales tax, franchise tax and income tax returns, I become more careful in working out with figures, data which I was not before. I understand payroll systems, the benefits and the purposes of deductions from each gross wage such as Social Security deduction (6.2%) which will contribute to taxpayer's retirement income and Medicare deduction (1.45%) which will contribute to taxpayer's Medicare coverage when retiring. This working experience is very useful for me to prepare for my future career as an accountant to be. I used to think that studying theories well is good enough for my career later, but right now I have a new perspective regarding this. Practicing preparing payroll report, sales tax report, individual income tax return, and corporation income tax returns is a good way to systemize, memorize theories I learnt and create a good foundation for me to study other subjects which play an important role in shaping a successful accountant. I recognized that working in team, communication skill, negotiation skill, and arrangement skill are also very important for an accountant - a factor that I used to forget because I used to think that accounting is a silent work incorrectly.
In addition, I have learnt a lot from my supervisor especially his management style. I really appreciate the way he manages his staff. He is friendly but he is also a very decisive person at work. He knows how to motivate his employees to always strive for being better, more efficient while creating a friendly working environment for all his staffs. He does not closely supervise me when I work but the way he talks about the job encourages me to do my best and find out the solution for every new and difficult case. After 3 months of co-op job, I have got valuable experience relating to accounting knowledge, team work spirit, sense of responsibility spirit and communication skills with clients.
V. CONCLUSION:
I would like to say thank you to Mr. Thomas Hoang and Mrs. Leann Hoang who have offered me a chance to work here. They let me handle from simple to complicated cases in order. Working at THOMAS HOANG, CPA-MBA is a wonderful learning experience and also a great opportunity for me to reassess myself, improve my care and review all theories I learnt from school. It is much more than what I have expected. I collect different experiences about bookkeeping, payroll, sales tax, and filing tax returns for individuals or for businesses. This is a good chance for me to apply what I have learnt from school as well as studying many new things and getting more experience. I strongly believe that study theories and practice in real cases need to go together and bring me valuable knowledge. This experience is one of my advantages for my career after graduating. For my career goal, as I want to be a good accountant in a Certified Public Accounting firm, I need to equip myself a broad knowledge foundation, communication, negotiation and teamwork skill in order to reach my career goal. After graduating, I hope I can become official employee of THOMAS HOANG, CPA-MBA.
