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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

Increased tax benefits may be available to you under the rules for "spousal" individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Under these rules, the amount a married couple can contribute to an IRA for a nonworking spouse in 2018 is $5,500. The same limit applies for the working spouse.

Social Security benefits are taxed depending on your other income. In the worst-case scenario, 85% of your benefits would be taxed. This does not mean you pay 85% of your benefits back to the government in taxes, but you would include 85% of them in your income subject to your regular tax rates.

If you've ever considered deducting your spouse's travel costs during a business trip, be careful. The rules for deducting those costs are pretty restrictive.

If you rent a home to a relative who (1) uses it as his or her principal residence (that is, not just as a second or vacation home) for the year, and (2) it is rented at fair rental rate (not at a discount), then no limitations apply. You can deduct all the normal rental expenses, even if they result in a rental loss for the year. If you have a loss, however, it is a "passive" loss, which may be subject to a different set of limitations.

Rapid City, SD, May 23, 2018 – Local CPA firm, Casey Peterson, Ltd. has been awarded the 2017 Top Wealth Advisory Firm from HK Financial Services (HKFS). Casey Peterson, Ltd. earned this award by helping clients with wealth management planning. Casey Peterson, Ltd. works closely with HKFS to provide independent and objective financial services to their clients. Congratulations, Casey Peterson, Ltd.