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Effective January 1 of each year, South Dakota increases its minimum wage rate to reflect an increase in the cost of living. This increase, which is 2.7 percent for 2019, is determined by the Consumer Price Index, a measure of changes in the purchasing-power of currency and the rate of inflation. South Dakota’s minimum wage will increase from $8.85 to $9.10 per hour in 2019.

There is an important tax accounting development that could reduce your recordkeeping and accounting burdens. As you may be aware, many automobile dealers value their inventories of auto parts at the amount it would cost to buy replacement parts rather than at “actual cost.”

Recently, as part of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018, Congress made several changes to credit rules that benefit consumers. Under the new law, consumers are now allowed to "freeze" and "unfreeze" their credit reports free of charge at all three of the major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The law also extends free credit freeze protection to children under age 16 and increases initial fraud alert protection to one full year (previously, fraud alerts expired after 90 days unless they were renewed).

Did you know that an employee may receive, on a tax-free basis, up to $5,250 each year from his or her employer for educational assistance under a “qualified educational assistance program?”

We are excited to announce the addition of an online payment option to our website! Casey Peterson, Ltd. has teamed up with USPAY/Xpress-pay to offer a safe and secure way for clients to pay invoices without having to mail a check, call, or stop by the office.

If you run a restaurant, you know that your menu is a huge part of making sure your business is successful. But what does a good menu look like? Obviously, you want your menu to help you increase sales. But you also need to define what success means to you. After you decide that, how can you measure that success over time and make sure your menu stays successful?

All tips are subject to federal income tax. Cash tips of $20 or more received in any month are considered wages for federal income tax withholding and FICA purposes, while noncash tips are not. In general, an employee who receives cash tips of $20 or more in one calendar month must report these tips to the employer on or before the 10th day of the following month.

It is not a major disaster if you owed some money when you filed your return-after all, you would rather have the use of the funds for as long as possible. What you want to avoid is having to pay the IRS a penalty for underpaying your taxes during the year. If you owe the estimated tax underpayment penalty, which is nondeductible, you are, in effect, paying the IRS interest for part of the money you should have prepaid during the year for taxes but did not. On the other hand, if you received a large refund on last year's return, you made an interest-free loan to the government which is something you may want to avoid this year. If that happened, you should consider reducing the amount of withholding taken from your salary and/or the amount of estimated tax payments you make.

The IRS will audit hundreds of thousands of individual tax returns this year. Although that represents only a small percentage of all returns filed, it is little consolation if your return is among those selected for audit. With proper preparation and planning, you should fare well.

Given the ever-escalating cost of providing employee healthcare benefits, we want to advise you of a more cost-effective method of providing these benefits; namely, a health savings account (HSA). For eligible individuals, HSAs offer a tax-favorable way to set aside funds (or have their employer do so) to meet future medical needs