by The MDTAXES Network | Jul 8, 2025 | 2025 July
Q: What happens when an employee leaves and how does it affect your MA Unemployment taxes?
- When an employee is terminated, the day they leave they must be paid for all wages they are owed plus any PTO or Vacation hours accrued. Sick hours typically do not have to be paid out. When an employee resigns instead, you may pay them with the next regularly scheduled payroll.
- As far as unemployment, you must let the employee know (whether they were terminated or resigned) that they are eligible to apply for unemployment. Being eligible to apply does not mean they will be granted unemployment. You must give them this pamphlet about how to apply.
- After the employee applies, MA DUA will send the employer a Monetary Determination Letter, which tells the “Total Potential Benefit” amount the employee can receive if approved for unemployment. The notice is not a bill or a determination, it is only a notice.
- Sometimes there are questionnaires sent to the employer for more information about the separation. It is very important to reply to the notices before the due date. Otherwise, you are giving up your right to provide information about the separation and contesting the claim.
- Ensure you have your Employer MA Unemployment Login so you can reply quickly and easily online. https://unemployment.mass.gov/Employers/_/ Click Login, enter your email and PW. If you have forgotten your PW, click Forgot PW.
- How is your Unemployment account affected when someone is approved for unemployment?
- Every payroll you are charged a certain assigned percentage for unemployment on the first $15,000 (MA) in gross wages that each employee earns in a year.
- Each payroll you pay into your MA unemployment account as part of your employer taxes.
- If an employee is granted unemployment, then the payments come out of the monies in your MA Unemployment account. You do not immediately pay additional taxes.
- Each year, the MA DUA calculates what your balance should be in your account. If your account is low due to terminated staff collecting, then expect the percentage that you pay the next year to rise. If your account is high, then the rate usually stays the same or close to the same for the next year.
EXAMPLE: Let’s say you have a 2.5% SUTA rate for the year. That means your practice is paying $375 (2.5% x $15,000) for the year per employee for MA SUTA. If an employee is approved for unemployment and your account goes low, then MA may raise your rate. Assuming your rate increases to 3.5% for the next year, then your practice will pay a maximum of $525 (3.5% x $15,000) for the year per employee.
by The MDTAXES Network | May 27, 2025 | 2025 May
By George Baker, Executive Coach, Fortune Management Northeast
Breathe Your Way to Less Stress and More Focus
During a recent coaching call, a dentist sighed, “If I only had a minute to breathe.” That hit home.
Your day is packed—patients, procedures, staff issues, business challenges. It feels like there’s never time to pause.
But guess what? You breathe over 23,000 times a day. The real question is: Are you doing it mindfully?
The Power of the Pause
Mindful breathing is a proven strategy to reduce stress and sharpen focus. It’s used by high performers everywhere—from elite athletes to Oprah.
Science backs it up: Mindfulness increases brain function in areas that manage stress and emotional regulation.
And you don’t need a yoga mat or retreat in the woods. You just need a few seconds.
My First Breathing Coach? My Mom.
As a kid, when I got upset, she’d say: “Take ten deep breaths.”
Later, as a firefighter in training, breath control became a survival skill. Slow breathing = calm thinking = better decisions under pressure.
Now, as a dental coach, I teach the same principle: Master your breath. Master your moment.
Try This Between Patients
- Plant your feet flat on the floor
- Sit tall, shoulders relaxed
- Inhale slowly for 5 seconds
- Exhale slowly for 5 seconds
- Repeat 3 times
That’s it. Instant clarity. More focus. Less stress.
And it works whether you’re in the operatory, the break room, or the parking lot.
Breathe. Lead. Grow.
You are more than a doctor. Your best is yet to come.
by The MDTAXES Network | May 27, 2025 | 2025 May
Whether you are a practice owner, work as an associate and get paid as a 1099 contractor, or do some consulting on the side, keeping track of your allowable business expenses to write off against that income is an important step towards minimizing your taxes.
Each year, we hear from clients wondering whether they can claim some or all of the costs associated with their great summer trips. Generally, visiting a friend’s office for a few hours during a weeklong trip won’t meet the threshold to make the trip fully deductible. There are different rules whether your trip is within the US or you travel abroad.
Let’s take a look at the IRS rules for deducting travel from their IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift and Car Expenses.
For travel within the US:
The following discussion applies to travel in the United States. For this purpose, the United States includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The treatment of your travel expenses depends on how much of your trip was business related and on how much of your trip occurred within the United States. See Part of Trip Outside the United States, later.
Trip Primarily for Business
You can deduct all of your travel expenses if your trip was entirely business related. If your trip was primarily for business and, while at your business destination, you extended your stay for a vacation, made a personal side trip, or had other personal activities, you can deduct only your business-related travel expenses. These expenses include the travel costs of getting to and from your business destination and any business-related expenses at your business destination.
Example.
You work in Atlanta and take a business trip to New Orleans in May. Your business travel totals 900 miles round trip. On your way home, you stop in Mobile to visit your parents. You spend $2,165 for the 9 days you are away from home for travel, non-entertainment-related meals, lodging, and other travel expenses. If you hadn’t stopped in Mobile, you would have been gone only 6 days, and your total cost would have been $1,633.50. You can deduct $1,633.50 for your trip, including the cost of round-trip transportation to and from New Orleans. The deduction for your non-entertainment-related meals is subject to the 50% limit on meals mentioned earlier.
Trip Primarily for Personal Reasons
If your trip was primarily for personal reasons, such as a vacation, the entire cost of the trip is a nondeductible personal expense. However, you can deduct any expenses you have while at your destination that are directly related to your business.
A trip to a resort or on a cruise ship may be a vacation even if the promoter advertises that it is primarily for business. The scheduling of incidental business activities during a trip, such as viewing videotapes or attending lectures dealing with general subjects, won’t change what is really a vacation into a business trip.
For Travel Outside the US:
If any part of your business travel is outside the United States, some of your deductions for the cost of getting to and from your destination may be limited. For this purpose, the United States includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
How much of your travel expenses you can deduct depends in part upon how much of your trip outside the United States was business related.
Travel Entirely for Business or Considered Entirely for Business
You can deduct all your travel expenses of getting to and from your business destination if your trip is entirely for business or considered entirely for business.
Travel entirely for business.
If you travel outside the United States and you spend the entire time on business activities, you can deduct all of your travel expenses.
Travel considered entirely for business.
Even if you didn’t spend your entire time on business activities, your trip is considered entirely for business if you meet at least one of the following four exceptions.
Exception 1—No substantial control.
Your trip is considered entirely for business if you didn’t have substantial control over arranging the trip. The fact that you control the timing of your trip doesn’t, by itself, mean that you have substantial control over arranging your trip.
You don’t have substantial control over your trip if you:
- Are an employee who was reimbursed or paid a travel expense allowance, and
- Aren’t related to your employer, or
- Aren’t a managing executive.
“Related to your employer” is defined later in chapter 6 under Per Diem and Car Allowances.
A “managing executive” is an employee who has the authority and responsibility, without being subject to the veto of another, to decide on the need for the business travel.
A self-employed person generally has substantial control over arranging business trips.
Exception 2—Outside United States no more than a week.
Your trip is considered entirely for business if you were outside the United States for a week or less, combining business and nonbusiness activities. One week means 7 consecutive days. In counting the days, don’t count the day you leave the United States, but do count the day you return to the United States.
Check out the IRS Publication 463, Travel, Gift and Car Expenses for additional travel related rules.
by The MDTAXES Network | May 27, 2025 | 2025 May
For taxpayers making energy efficient home improvements in their main home, a federal tax credit is allowed to be claimed on their tax return. The maximum allowed tax credit in a year for qualified energy improvements is $3,200 and is comprised of two separate portions:
- A general credit capped at $1,200 for costs that include exterior doors, windows and skylights, home energy audits, as well as specified HVAC items that include water heaters, boilers and central air conditioning units.
- A second energy property credit capped at $2,000 for costs that include heat pumps and biomass stoves and boilers.
Beginning in 2025, to claim energy efficient home improvement tax credit, items must be purchased from an IRS registered Qualified Manufacturer (QM) and each item purchased must be labeled with a qualified product identification number (PIN). Taxpayers will be required to report the item’s PIN on their tax return, otherwise this tax credit will be disallowed.
by The MDTAXES Network | May 27, 2025 | 2025 May
In and effort to reduce fraud and waste, effective September 30, 2025, paper checks issued by the government will cease. After that date, all government departments and agencies will be required to only accept and pay out funds via electronic means, such as electronic funds transfer (EFT), debit & credit cards, digital wallets and other real time fund transfers. An exception for individuals without banking or EFT access will be allowed. Assuming that there are no delays in implementing this new financial policy, taxpayers will no longer be allowed to send in a check for balance due tax returns nor receive a check if expecting a cash refund from the IRS for 2025 tax returns being filed in 2026. This change will also impact taxpayers that have filed an extension for their 2024 federal tax return and who will file that tax return after the date of September 30, 2025.
