I like the idea of having the office pay the fees (which are predictable, should be connected to a written agreement, and which might imply an IRS form 1099-MISC at year's end), and giving any one of the Team members a check for the expenses. For example, personally I wouldn't have any trouble tracking the money as income /expenses because I itemize business deductions anyway, and taxes are figured on the net, not the gross. Cash in = cash out = no tax impact. If you don't file a Schedule A (or is it a C?), then it's a problem, and if none of the team members file the more complicated return, they could request that the office handle it.
But the benefit of handling the money through one person (rather than 5-6 people sending separate expense reimbursements to the office), is that you (me, whoever) can more easily stay on top of expenditures. Otherwise we have to wait for the bookkeeper to give us a report that is accurate. I like the ROOTS bookkeeper fine, but it took much longer than it should have to get an answer to the question, "how much money did we spend?"
My two cents' (three cents before deduction)'s worth, K
Dear RSC,Something to clarify is who issues the checks once the RSC teams have determined their final budgets.Because I was given the amount of money alloted for the LE I hosted in Chestertown and wrote out the checks to pay people for their work, I am required now to itemize those allocations as my expenses when doing my taxes.Another way to say it is because I received the hunk of money to cover food and peoples expenses as well as their fees, I have to treat the money I received from ROOTS as my business and itemize who I paid and what was spent in order not to pay taxes on that "income".This is another hunk of work to consider.Perhaps we should clarify that once RSC Teams have determined their final budget, the ROOTS office issues the checks to pay fees. Hosts I presume would still have receive the money to cover food and supplies, and that would be something that they would have to track for their taxes.Perhaps someone can explain this better then I, but I think this is something important to address, and become clear about our procedure.best, Hope Clark <http://homepage.mac.com/hopeclark/iMovieTheater11.html>http://homepage.mac.com/hopeclark/iMovieTheater11.html
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Kathie deNobriga
PO Box 1087
Pine Lake GA 30072 USA
(404) 299-9498 phone & fax
(678) 427-9673 cell
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