Acuity Advisors

Larger deduction might be available to businesses providing meals to their employees

When businesses provide meals to their employees, generally their deduction is limited to 50%. But there are exceptions. One is if the meal qualifies as a de minimis fringe benefit under the Internal Revenue Code.

A recent U.S. Tax Court ruling could ultimately mean that more employer-provided meals will be 100% deductible under this exception. The court found that the Boston Bruins hockey team’s pregame meals to players and personnel at out-of-town hotels qualified as a de minimis fringe benefit.

Qualifying requirements

For meals to qualify as a de minimis fringe benefit, generally they must be occasional and have so little value that accounting for them would be unreasonable or administratively impracticable. But meals provided at an employer-operated eating facility for employees can also qualify.

For meals at an employer-operated facility, one requirement is that they be provided in a nondiscriminatory manner: Access to the eating facility must be available “on substantially the same terms to each member of a group of employees, which is defined under a reasonable classification set up by the employer that doesn’t discriminate in favor of highly compensated employees.”

Assuming that definition is met, employee meals generally constitute a de minimis fringe benefit if the following conditions also are met:

The eating facility is owned or leased by the employer.
The facility is operated by the employer.
The facility is located on or near the business premises of the employer.
The meals furnished at the facility are provided during, or immediately before or after, the employee’s workday.

The meals generally also must be furnished for the convenience of the employer rather than primarily as a form of additional compensation.

On the road

What’s significant about the Bruins case is that the meals were provided at hotels while the team was on the road. The Tax Court determined that the Bruins met all of the de minimis tests related to an employer-operated facility for their away-game team meals. The court’s reasoning included the following:

Pregame meals were made available to all Bruins traveling hockey employees (highly compensated, non-highly compensated, players and nonplayers) on substantially the same terms.
The Bruins agreements with the hotels were substantively leases.
By engaging in its process with away-city hotels, the Bruins were “contract[ing] with another to operate an eating facility for its employees.”
Away-city hotels were part of the Bruins’ business premises, because staying at out-of-town hotels was necessary for the teams to prepare for games, maintain a successful hockey operation and navigate the rigors of an NHL-mandated schedule.
For every breakfast and lunch, traveling hockey employees were required to be present in the meal rooms.
The meals were furnished for the convenience of the Bruins.

If your business provides meals under similar circumstances, it’s possible you might also be eligible for a 100% deduction. But be aware that the facts of this case are specific and restrictive. Also the IRS could appeal, and an appeals court could rule differently.

Questions about deducting meals you’re providing to employees? Contact us.

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Supplement your financial statements with timely flash reports

Most companies prepare financial statements on a monthly or quarterly basis. Unfortunately, it usually takes between two and six weeks for management to finalize reports that comply with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The process takes even longer if an outside accountant reviews or audits your financial statements. Decision-making based solely on this stale information is reactive, not proactive. To help bridge the timing gap between daily operations and receipt of monthly or quarterly financial statements, consider using “flash reports.”

Reap the benefits

Flash reports typically provide a snapshot of key financial figures, such as cash balances, receivables aging, collections and payroll. Some metrics might be tracked daily — including sales, shipments and deposits. This is especially critical during seasonal peaks or among distressed borrowers.

Effective flash reports are simple and comparative. Those that take longer than an hour to prepare or use more than one sheet of paper are too complex to maintain. Comparative flash reports identify patterns from week to week — or deviations from the budget that may need corrective action.

Beware of limitations

Flash reports can help management proactively identify and respond to problems and weaknesses. But they have limitations that management should recognize to avoid misuse.

Most important, flash reports provide a rough measure of performance and are seldom 100% accurate. It’s also common for items such as cash balances and collections to ebb and flow throughout the month, depending on billing cycles.

Companies generally use flash reports only internally. They’re rarely shared with creditors and franchisors, unless required in bankruptcy or by the franchise agreement. A lender also may ask for flash reports if a borrower fails to meet liquidity, profitability and leverage covenants.

If shared flash reports deviate from what’s subsequently reported on GAAP financial statements, stakeholders may wonder if management exaggerated results on the flash report or is simply untrained in financial reporting matters. If you need to share flash reports, consider adding a disclaimer that the results are preliminary, may contain errors or omissions, and haven’t been prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Customize your flash reports

Each company’s flash report should contain different information. For instance, billable hours might be more relevant to a law firm, and machine utilization rates more relevant to a manufacturer. We can help you figure out what items matter most in your industry and how to create an effective flash report for your business.

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Could captive insurance reduce health care costs and save your business taxes?

If your business offers health insurance benefits to employees, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a climb in premium costs in recent years — perhaps a dramatic one. To meet the challenge of rising costs, some employers are opting for a creative alternative to traditional health insurance known as “captive insurance.” A captive insurance company generally is wholly owned and controlled by the employer. So it’s essentially like forming your own insurance company. And it provides tax advantages, too.

Benefits abound

Potential benefits of forming a captive insurance company include:

Stabilized or lower premiums,
More control over claims,
Lower administrative costs, and
Access to certain types of coverage that are unavailable or too expensive on the commercial health insurance market.

You can customize your coverage package and charge premiums that more accurately reflect your business’s true loss exposure.

Another big benefit is that you can participate in the captive’s underwriting profits and investment income. When you pay commercial health insurance premiums, a big chunk of your payment goes toward the insurer’s underwriting profit. But when you form a captive, you retain this profit through the captive.

Also, your business can enjoy investment and cash flow benefits by investing premiums yourself instead of paying them to a commercial insurer.

Tax impact

A captive insurance company may also save you tax dollars. For example, premiums paid to a captive are tax-deductible and the captive can deduct most of its loss reserves. To qualify for federal income tax purposes, a captive must meet several criteria. These include properly priced premiums based on actuarial and underwriting considerations and a sufficient level of risk distribution as determined by the IRS.

Recent U.S. Tax Court rulings have determined that risk distribution exists if there’s a large enough pool of unrelated risks — or, in other words, if risk is spread over a sufficient number of employees. This is true regardless of how many entities are involved.

Additional tax benefits may be available if your captive qualifies as a “microcaptive” (a captive with $2.2 million or less in premiums that meets certain additional tests): You may elect to exclude premiums from income and pay taxes only on net investment income. Be aware, however, that you’ll lose certain deductions with this election.

Also keep in mind that there are some potential drawbacks to forming a captive insurance company. Contact us to learn more about the tax treatment and other pros and cons of captive insurance. We can help you determine whether this alternative may be right for your business.

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Credit loss standard: The new CECL model

A new accounting standard on credit losses goes into effect in 2020 for public companies and 2021 for private ones. It will result in earlier recognition of losses and expand the range of information considered in determining expected credit losses. Here’s how the new methodology differs from existing practice.

Existing model

Under existing U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), financial institutions must apply an “incurred loss” model when recognizing credit losses on financial assets measured at amortized cost. This model delays recognition until a loss is “probable” (or likely) to be incurred, based on past events and current conditions.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) found that, leading up to the global financial crisis, financial statement users made independent estimates of expected credit losses using forward-looking information and then devalued financial institutions before the institutions were permitted to recognize the losses. This practice made it clear that the requirements under GAAP weren’t meeting the needs of financial statement users.

New-and-improved model

Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-13, Financial Instruments — Credit Losses (Topic 326), introduces a new “current expected credit loss” (CECL) model. The CECL model requires financial institutions to immediately record the full amount of expected credit losses in their loan portfolios based on forward-looking information, rather than waiting until the losses are deemed probable based on what’s already happened. The FASB expects this change to result in more timely and relevant information.

The measurement of expected credit losses will be based on relevant information about past events (including historical experience), current conditions, and the “reasonable and supportable” forecasts that affect the collectibility of the reported amount.

Specifically, an allowance for credit losses will be deducted from the amortized cost of the financial asset to present its net carrying value on the balance sheet. The income statement will reflect the measurement of credit losses for newly recognized financial assets, as well as the expected increases or decreases of expected credit losses that have taken place during the relevant reporting period.

Companies will be allowed to continue using many of the loss estimation techniques currently employed, including loss rate methods, probability of default methods, discount cash flow methods and aging schedules. But the inputs of those techniques will change to reflect the full amount of expected credit losses and the use of reasonable and supportable forecasts.

We can help

The updated guidance doesn’t prescribe a specific technique to estimate credit losses — rather, companies can exercise judgment to determine which method is appropriate. Contact us if you need help finding the optimal method for identifying and quantifying credit losses, along with complying with the expanded disclosure requirements.

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Put your audit in reverse to save sales and use tax

It’s a safe bet that state tax authorities will let you know if you haven’t paid enough sales and use taxes, but what are the odds that you’ll be notified if you’ve paid too much? The chances are slim — so slim that many businesses use reverse audits to find overpayments so they can seek refunds.

Take all of your exemptions

In most states, businesses are exempt from sales tax on equipment used in manufacturing or recycling, and many states don’t require them to pay taxes on the utilities and chemicals used in these processes, either. In some states, custom software, computers and peripherals are exempt if they’re used for research and development projects.

This is just a sampling of sales and use tax exemptions that might be available. Unless you’re diligent about claiming exemptions, you may be missing out on some to which you’re entitled.

Many businesses have sales and use tax compliance systems to guard against paying too much, but if you haven’t reviewed yours recently, it may not be functioning properly. Employee turnover, business expansion or downsizing, and simple mistakes all can take their toll.

Look back and broadly

The audit should extend across your business, going back as far as the statute of limitations on state tax reviews. If your state auditors can review all records for the four years preceding the audit, for example, your reverse audit should encompass the same timeframe.

What types of payments should be reviewed? You may have made overpayments on components of manufactured products as well as on the equipment you use to make the products. Other areas where overpayments may occur, depending on state laws, include:

Pollution control equipment and supplies,
Safety equipment,
Warehouse equipment,
Software licenses,
Maintenance fees,
Protective clothing, and
Service transactions.

When considering whether you may have overpaid taxes in these and other areas, a clear understanding of your operations is key. If, for example, you want to ensure you’re receiving maximum benefit from industrial processing exemptions, you must know where your manufacturing process begins and ends.

Save now and later

Reverse audits can be time consuming and complicated, but a little pain can bring significant gain. Use your reverse audit not only to reap tax refund rewards now but also to update your compliance systems to help ensure you don’t overpay taxes in the future.

Rules and regulations surrounding state sales and use tax refunds are complicated. We can help you understand them and ensure your refund claims are properly prepared before you submit them.

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