Blog

“I don’t know what to write about.”

This is a common excuse I’ve heard from tax practitioners for not keeping up a regular blog on their website. As tax practitioners, we deal with the tax code every day. It’s easy to forget that our clients and prospective clients don’t share our depth of knowledge. What seems obvious to us may be completely unknown to them.

A regular blog on a variety of topics will never take the place of your guidance as a trusted accountant who knows the intimate details of your clients’ financial matters. But it can enhance your practice by educating your clients about methods for reducing taxes and building long-term wealth. It can also save you time by providing you with posts you can simply point your clients to when they ask a question you’ve heard over and over.

Adding fresh content to your website on a regular basis is one of the criteria used by Google for search engine rankings. Google is continually revising its search ranking algorithm in an attempt to make the search experience a positive one for users. The emphasis is on quality and quantity, not on tricks designed to increase ranking at the expense of providing useful information to the searcher.

Here are 78 topic suggestions for your tax blog. These should keep you busy for a while — and serve as a starting point for additional topics to write about!

1. Are you on track with your retirement saving?
2. Roth vs. Traditional IRA — how to choose
3. Rules for taking distributions from Roth and Traditional IRAs
4. What happens when the IRA owner dies — why your beneficiary choice is critical
5. Rules for borrowing from your IRA
6. Qualified charitable distributions from IRAs — how to do this and what are the tax benefits
7. Rules for rolling over a retirement account into another account
8. Time value of money — how a little invested early can beat large sums invested later
9. Retirement plans for self-employed and small business
10. Defined benefit plans — why this may be a great choice for some small businesses
11. What the new repair regulations mean for your business
12. Taking advantage of the safe harbor de minimis election for purchases of small items
13. Repair regulations — when is it a repair that you can expense and when do you have to capitalize it
14. Business use of vehicles — when is your drive a commute, personal or business use?
15. What kinds of vehicles are eligible for a 100% write-off in the year you buy them
16. Documentation requirements for business use of vehicles and how to make it easy
17. Estimated payments and how to calculate safe harbor amounts
18. Nexus for income tax — what are the rules overall and what are the rules for your state and those nearby
19. Nexus for sales tax — how is ecommerce changing this, and how can you monitor this
20. Domestic Production Activities Deduction: What businesses are eligible and how to calculate it
21. Research & Development credit — what are the potential tax savings and what businesses are eligible
22. When does it make sense to do a cost-segregation study for the building you use for your business
23. Qualified leasehold improvement rules — what improvements qualify for 15-year depreciation
24. Vacation home rental rules
25. Selling your personal home — Timelines for excluding gain for personal use
26. Depreciation recapture from business use of your personal home
27. Converting your home to or from a rental property
28. Step-up in basis of your home at death of spouse — how this works in a community property state vs. a separate property state
29. Choice of entity — Advantages and disadvantages of each type
30. Agreements and contracts for your business — why you need a formal agreement and why your CPA needs to see it
31. S-corporations — overview of this entity type and how this can save on self-employment tax
32. Reasonable compensation for an S-corporation owner
33. Formation and dissolution of a business
34. Late election relief for an S-corporation
35. Distribution issues for S-corporations — must be proportionate and when they can become taxable
36. Shareholder loans — what you need to do to avoid reclassifying these as capital contributions or distributions
37. Basis issues for S-corporations
38. Accumulated Adjustments Account (AAA) — what this is and how transactions affect it
39. Partnerships — overview of this entity type and benefits of complete flexibility in agreements
40. What partnership income is subject to self-employment tax — recent IRS cases
41. Partner loans, partnership debt, and basis issues
42. Section 704(b) allocations in partnerships
43. C-corporations — overview of this entity type and when this is an appropriate choice
44. Best ways to get cash out of a C-corp and avoid double-taxation
45. Like-kind exchanges — how to structure and execute these for maximum tax savings
46. Mortgage interest deduction rules — how to calculate allowable amount when your mortgage is over $1.1 million
47. How a recent IRS decision on mortgage interest is a bonus for unmarried couples
48. Estate tax — how the portability rules can affect you and your spouse
49. Charitable deductions of non-cash items — when do you need an appraisal
50. How to document donations to charities
51. Household employees — reporting and tax issues
52. Taxability of barter transactions
53. Stock options — how to decide when to exercise and when to sell
54. How investing in muni bonds can save you taxes
55. Harvesting losses in your portfolio to save capital gains tax
56. Passive activity loss rules — what you need to know before investing in a passive activity
57. Rules for qualified real estate professionals — how to meet them and the tax benefits this classification accords
58. How to structure gifts to maximize the benefits for all parties
59. Section 1202 stock — gains on sale are tax exempt
60. Setting up an accountable plan to reimburse an S-corporation shareholder for expenses
61. Section 179 limits explained
62. Gambling income and losses — what you can deduct and what records you need to keep
63. Hobby loss rules and your small business — how to protect yourself in case of an IRS audit
64. What to do in case of tax identity theft
65. Tax breaks for higher education expenses
66. What expenses qualify for the childcare tax credit and what documents you need from your provider
67. Rules for claiming someone as a dependent on your tax return
68. Avoid underpayment penalties by increasing tax withholding from salaries
69. Cash vs. accrual basis on tax returns
70. Dependency exemptions for children of divorced parents
71. Lease accounting rules — how the GAAP rules differ from tax rules
72. When does it pay to outsource your bookkeeping
73. How hiring a remote CFO can help you grow your business
74. Changing from cash-basis accounting to accrual (or vice versa)
75. How to correct mistakes in depreciation
76. What to do when you receive a letter from the IRS or your state tax authority
77. Ways to structure the sale of a business to save on taxes
78. What is AMT and how to reduce your exposure

I hope this list give you plenty of ideas for your tax blog. Your client base, your practice and your team are all unique. Your blog will be most successful if it reflects that uniqueness.