jblake

This particular patent troll has filed lawsuits with at least a dozen of my competitors in the past year. Some were voluntarily dismissed, some ongoing, rest unknown (based on my limited research skills). The patent in question involves downloading a remote database to a mobile device used as a lookup table when scanning a QR code. Yeah...

I'm a one person company and have no idea what to do.

I develop on a Macbook Pro and I want to get a Mac Mini to have as a backup machine. Ideally, whatever happens in certain directories on my laptop, and synced quickly to the Mac mini. Any suggestions?

I moved to Nevada (from Cali) in August and opened a Nevada LLC in November. I'm all set up on Payroll (using Gusto) and believe I have that figured out. I just sent in Form 2553 to the IRS. I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can help with!

1. I capitalized the LLC with $2,100 (mostly to avoid Chase fees) and want pay myself back. Should I account for this as a simple loan and transfer it back? So it's not counted as income.

2. I filed the LLC in Nov to give myself time to open up all the accounts and stuff and was careful not to do any "business" for the remainder of the year under the new LLC, hoping to avoid filing a return (I will only file my personal return for 2020). Is that correct? In form 2553 I entered the effective date as Jan 1 2021.

3. How do I distribute extra earnings outside of Payroll? I can simply transfer the money between my Chase accounts, right... the important thing is how to account for that dividend on both form 1120S and my personal return? I am careful to only pay my payroll through Gusto.

I know y'all will say hire an accountant or whatever, but I've managed pretty well doing this stuff myself. I was CLOSE to doing EFTPS payroll payments myself... but Gusto (so far) is money well spent ($25/mo).

I'm pretty hopeless at graphic design, but I can manipulate stuff OK in photoshop or sketch. I want to create basic cover photos, heros, etc for use in Twitter, blog posts, Intercom announcements, landing pages, and the like. Not reinventing the wheel, SaaS companies do this all time and usually include a title, half sentence, screenshot/image, and background gradient/color.

Any suggestions? I've tried Envato, but there's a lot of crap to sift through, and the templates are usually too busy.

IRS is telling me they want tens of thousands of dollars in tax for 2015.

Up to 2015, I operated a credit card merchant account (First Data) where I would process event ticket sales on behalf of clients, and ACH transfer them their funds. Of the money processed, perhaps 3% is income. I no longer do this model (for many reasons) and use Stripe instead.

Naturally, First data sent me a 1099 saying I made a bunch of money. IRS knows that. I don't report 1099's on my returns directly, because I have an accounting system that includes all of that income.

So clearly, I can explain to a layman why this money is not income, but what is the proper way to respond to this letter and prove it, hopefully avoiding an audit?

Thanks.