Tax-software Books

As with any reference work, you would use it for something like drawing up a client agreement, finding out details about business taxes, or perhaps you might just utilize one of the many example forms that are provided in the back of the book.

"Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants" is a well-written and very comprehensive book on the subject of self-employment. It includes 21 chapters, and covers almost every aspect of working for yourself, such as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, choosing legal form and name of your firm, home office or outside office, licenses, permits, and ID numbers, insurance, pricing and getting paid, taxes, employees and independent contractors, record keeping, accounting, retirement options, copyrights, trade secrets and patents, client agreements, further resources, forms and documents, and sample agreements.
Anyhow, this is not a book you will read cover to cover, but is very well-written and laid out guide. The only drawback to the book is that there appears to be no link to the sample documents used in the book. I checked the Nolo website and was unable to find downloadable documents used in the book. However, Nolo does sell legal forms on their website.

SMALL BUSINESS-The Art of The Start -40 Successful Concepts for A Small Business Start-up - You Start, Grow And Succeed

e-Marketing Intelligence - Transforming Brand and Increasing Sales - Tips and Tricks with Best Practices

"Working for Yourself" provides you with answers to all of your basic questions regarding starting your own business. It is not a substitute for discussing things with accountants or lawyers, but it provides you with all of the basic knowledge you need to make the proper decisions and will make those discussions more fruitful (and cheaper). Because the book covers all of the different aspects of your independent business, it also can serve as a great reference book in the future.

This book is a goldmine of information for the self-employed professional.

From how to set up your business to naming your website, pros and cons of home offices, to tons of info on legal issues like permits, and insurance issues (health, liability, disability, property, car, workers' comp and more), this book is the small business owner's encyclopedia of quick answers.

You'll find tons of information on taxes--income taxes (and how to reduce them), estimated taxes, self-employment taxes, and taxes for workers. There are also valuable chapters on record-keeping and retirement options, as well as copyrights, patents and trade secrets.

Written agreements are often a problem for start-ups and there are three chapters full of information on everything from creating them to reviewing them, changing them, writing your own, and more.

You'll also find two appendixes in this book--one with forms and documents that you can copy and use, and another with three sample agreements that you can adapt for yourself.

There is also an index, making it very easy to find something quickly.

I highly recommend this book. It should be your first business purchase, and I'm sure it will save you many times its purchase price.

The sub-title of "Working for Yourself" is Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants. However, this book goes far beyond just the legal and tax issues the self-employed have to deal with. For example, the book includes pros and cons of working for yourself instead of being an employee. It also addresses working from home vs. renting an outside office, and gives helpful advice about working with clients.

I am a big fan of the Nolo Press guides and own several, including others by Stephen Fishman. All of the Nolo books are comprehensive, and this one is no exception.

Not only does this book answer the questions you may have about working for yourself, it answers the questions you do not yet know to ask. The best way to use "Working for Yourself" is not to simply sit down and read it cover to cover. Instead, I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the table of contents so you know what issues are covered by the book. Then read the sections that apply to what you are dealing with now and in the near future.

Keep "Working for Yourself" in a handy place in your office so you can refer to it as needed. Then refer to it often as you build your business.

I have always been an advocate and strong supporter of Nolo Press and have read most of their books on various legal matters and would recommend them to customers when I worked at Borders. I recently elected to become an Independent Contractor and it is clear to me that either some clients might misconstrue the rules according to law or bend them, but if you take control and study up right from the outset you'll be in good shape.
"Working for Yourself" covered everything and offered a comprehensive view of the process and how to achieve best practices and negotiations when dealing with new clients. The chapter alone on "Drafting Your Own Client Agreements" will save you potential grief. The IRS enforces strict guidelines on I.C.s, so it is imperative to get the most benefits and tax breaks out of your personal business.

In today's tough job market, where layoffs are the order of the day, perhaps "Working for Yourself" is the freedom you've been seeking. It works for me.

My only critique would be the forms and agreements should be available online.

Highly recommend Working for Yourself!!!

This is a great reference book for anyone who gives financial planning advice to clients. The authors detail the best ways in which to set up, and make changes to IRAs, in order to get the best result for the IRA owner and beneficiaries.

A lot of real world experience is evident from the author's explanations of the methods recommended for use in dealing with individuals and families, and their retirement planning. Technical issues are dealt with comprehensively as well as the human element, which is often overlooked in a technical publication.

How IRA money is best used in estate planning is covered in detail. For estate planning the authors also give a very detailed explanation of how life insurance can be used to pay estate taxes, leaving the bulk of a large estate intact. The chapter goes into great detail about the life insurance industry, types of policies and the pros and cons of life insuranace illustations.

I first got this cool little CD with my Turbo Tax software and decided to get another as a gift. It was sort of a companion to the tax preparation part. It doesn't help you prepare your taxes; rather, it teaches you what is taxed in your personal finances: capital gains, dividends and interest, etc. There's a lot of discussion about retirement plans and how you can reduce your taxes on them, too. Overall, I'd say it's well worth what you pay for it; even more, if you think of next year, too.

Professor Dan Wallace's "Greek Grammar" not only furnishes an overwhelming amount of information for students, but could also easily serve as a launching pad for multitudes of scholarly work. Unlike the introductory texts that tend to have fixed rules, such as the declension endings, tense formatives or the square of stops (I'm using Mounce's terminologies here) with very few exceptions, "Greek Grammar" is an intermediate text where in some cases, there is no black and white rule of interpretation that perfectly applies to certain difficult passages of the Scripture; for example, the nuance of a train of participles in Eph 5:19-21 (p.651), whether they imply result or manner, and several other cases Wallace places under the heading of "debatable texts."

One of the most brilliant and theologically significant exegesis that I have studied in this text is the analysis of the anarthrous per-verbal predicate nominative "theos" in John 1:1 (p.256-270). Here Wallace shows that this "theos," citing the statistical analysis done by Harner and Dixon, is qualitative, not definite. So what's the big deal? It is a huge deal. An interpretation of definite theos might be the source of the error of Sabelianism or modalism. The error of treating the word as definite is a result of misapplication; the converse application to be exact, which is an invalid use of Colwell's rule. Moreover, even less excusable is the error of interpreting the word as indefinite such as what the New World translators did, that Wallace describes as more of an issue of theological bias toward Arianism (p.267). So the apostle John wasn't arbitrary when he placed an anarthrous pre-verbal predicate nominative theos in John 1:1. "The construction the evangelist chose to express this idea was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father." (p.269).

Studying enormous amount of linguistic information could be challenging. I believe Wallace was trying to be fair in citing the academic works of many grammarians; classical and modern, as evident by so many footnotes discussing the references he cited from, before coming up with his own conclusion about his analysis on proper uses of particular topic in discussion. But while it is useful to know others' point of view, it could be confusing as well. I guess the trade-off is if Wallace is trying to be concise by only teaching what he believes to be the proper rules of interpretation without citing many references, the students will not get much exposure on both the historical background such as the classical versus Koine Greek uses as well as the past and existing research findings. I actually prefer this approach. On the contrary, Wallace seems to choose to mingle references with the materials which often causes more distractions to me; a clear example of which is when he talks about the approach adopted by Goodwin versus Gildersleeve when working with conditional sentences (p.705-709).

In addition, while doing a superb job for the majority of the text in citing many New Testament uses and explain them when claiming a certain application of a Greek part of speech, there are two sections where Wallace does not do or barely does this; when covering prepositions (p.364-389) and clauses (p.657-665) where he seems to breeze through the section without including many examples at all. A subject that I wished Wallace includes more as well is the speech act theory that has to do with the pragmatic view in exegesis as opposed to structural and semantic view. He barely touches upon this subject in conditional sentence section (p.703). I guess the speech act theory seems to be of a higher plane of exegesis beyond semantic, and is reserved for an advanced study.

Despite seemingly complicated divisions of the chapters and sections where a topic may have three or four sub-divisions, Wallace provides a double summary of everything he has covered at the end of the text. First, it is called a syntax summary that consists of the basic categories with definition but without examples. Second, it is called "cheat sheet" that consists of description of categories only; no definition and no examples; intended as a handy reference for students when doing exegesis. To use the cheat sheet, I would caution that one should know first what the categories are about. The cheat sheet is of little or no use when students are trying to determine what category an accusative they are reading falls under if they don't know or remember what double accusative means listed under "Accusative" section.

Studying this text is exhausting. It took me seven months to complete. Perhaps studying it in a classroom experience is richer and more rewarding; something that I don't have the privilege of. I wish. But one thing for sure, that though I have studied the text end-to-end, I am not done with it. My head is way too small to contain all the materials Wallace teaches. There is always a need to review and most importantly, this text is a valuable reference, a must-have for me personally, I should say, for New Testament exegesis.

My secondary Greek classes in seminary lived and died by this book! The author includes more in-depth information on forms and uses than probably any other book on the planet. It is the perfect follow-up to a solid Greek program (such as Ann Castro's Greek For All Ages), an indespensible tool to use alongside your Greek New Testament for help in exegesis and translation!

I didn't order this for myself but for a student of my huband's for his birthday. He is thrilled with the book -- has wanted it for a long time. He is highly interested in languages and wants to pursue seminary education. This will be great for him. Thank you.

This book arrived in a timely manner and was in good shape--exactly what we expected.

This has been a most helpful volume to me already; it is clearly done and not too advanced for a middle student of the language. If I have any criticism I would say that the index could be just a little more complete, but it is not bad. I find myself using the volume often with satisfaction.
My background is engineering so I am unfamiliar with some of the literary vocabulary, but usually Wallace takes the trouble to explain terminology and that is a big plus.

I have just concluded a Federal Taxation college course using this book. I agree with other readers who state that the book was written with very easy to understand language and in a user-friendly format (easy to find what you need during an open-book exam). It also covers the latest developments in tax law and policy and you will find many a scenario that will apply to you personally,or address an area of tax law that you had always wondered but never really knew how it worked.
Regarding the software, yes it is 2007. But this is a student-learning software, it by no means is intended to be the one you use to file your taxes!!If you need tax-prep software go to Turbotax.com or buy the latest software from your office supply store.

I purchased a tax book for a tax class and it had everything I needed. The CD was included, the book was in great condition with very minimal damage. The CD did not appear to have been opened at all. Also the shipping time was quick about a week or less. Transaction went through easily and received the expected product in a timely manner.

Was shipped fast! There was a lot more writing in the book than I expected, but still happy with the book!

New college student, again, after graduating once 32 years ago, it was a real pleasure to save money and have the correct product delivered on time. What more could a consumer ask for?

This 2009 Edition includes 2007 TaxCut software. If you expected to file your 2008 taxes with this purchase, you will probably be disappointed - like I am.

Great overall reference book for the self-trained bookkeeper who owns or works for a small company. I speculate the same for the school-trained accountant working for larger companies.

The book seems well organized. Easy to jump to chapters I need without having to read start to finish.

This is not going to answer all of your ?'s nor will it make you an expert but it is definitely worth having around for the money it costs. Written in as plain of a language as possible but you still need to have a basic financial background; that's just the nature of the software. I don't think the people that wrote Quickbooks can answer all of the questions people have about their software so don't expect this book to do it too!

The book had no marks or highlights as described. The CD was also included. Great condition!

This is an excellent text. I have used it for an online class where I rarely had to call the teacher for clarification. I also used it during the tax preparation season while assisting taxpayers and it was a great reference. I also find it very handy and very informative. The tips given in the tax break boxes and the columns regarding "Would You Believe?" are very interesting and are good learning points. The examples coupled with the self-study problems really cement the practical application aspect of the text. I have even written some poems about taxes while reading the text!

Books to read for relaxation: Trilogy Moments for the Mind, Body and Soul; Everyday Miracles, and The Language of Poetry Forms

This book is well worth the cost. You can save much more in taxes than you pay for the book if used properly.

Quick shipping and the book was in great condition. I would recommend buying from them again.

Have experienced great product service from Amazon, however any deliver via DHL has been absolutely horrendous. I couldn't seem to locate any accurate tracking of when my package would arrive. I would definitely not order anything via Amazaon that would be delivered via DHL.

Great book. Has a lot of detail, well-organized. Examples make it easier to understand the material.

It arrived two weeks later than I expected, just four days before my test. So I strongly recommendate the seller provide an option of express shipping.

its a great book on tax law and even though its a hard reading its very informative

I think it lacks good practice problems that are comprehensive and that encompass more than one issue. It would be better if there were more visual representations of IRS forms. Overall the text itself is easy to understand and studying is easy as it is organized well.

This books is a disservice to those trying to learn federal income tax. This is a book on tax law, not on how to prepare individual tax returns or to prepare for the CPA exam. In short, save your money and buy "Income Tax Fundamentals" by Whittenburg and Altus-Buller. For comparison, when discussing medical expense deductions, this book splits the dicussion into two chapters seven chapters apart and never states the formula. Income Tax Fundamentals has as the last sentence of the first paragraph "here's the formula to calculate".

Also in the South-Western book you will never see a 1040 or any of the supporting schedules because it is about tax LAW. In the Whittenburg book EVERY chapter shows you the forms and explains how to fill them out in detail and how to calculate the amounts because it is a tax ACCOUNTING textbook.

Here's brief list of issues I had with this book
- It is completely lacking in clarity because it never walks thr reader through how to do the tasks, it provides an illustrative situation, states the amount of tax owed and moves on. There is no step-by-step as to how the answer was derived or how you could do it yourself. This leaves you blindly mixing and matching numbers to try to figure out how to reproduce the result.
- the text frequently makes assertions in the examples that are not supported by the text leading to the example (in some cases, the example can be explained by information several pages later -- where the example SHOULD have occured
- it will provide lists of exceptions or rules, but then not explain what they mean. For instance when discussing Hobby Losses, the book states 9 rules to determine whether an activity is a hobby or a business, but doesn't inform the reader which would apply: "The expertise of the taxpayer" would that make it a hobby or a business? The book doesn't say. "The expectation that the assets will increase in value" Again, does that make it a hobby or a business?
- When discussing the restrictions on deductions for transactions between related parties, it covers Losses, Unpaid Expenses and Interest and THEN at the end defines what "related parties" means!
- It does next to nothing to inform the student HOW to do much of anything; it simply states what the rules are and moves on
- frequently it uses BUSINESS examples throughout the text instead of individual examples (this has lead to extreme confusion in the class over a test question where students, who had taken taxation of corporations, got the question wrong). Although many individual filers have private businesses, the book provides as an example whether "Blackbird Airlines" a non-private company can deduct the cost of its federally mandated engine tests!

It goes on like this for 800+ pages. It's unconscionable!

If this text is required in your class, write up a formal complaint to your school (I am documenting the flaws I have found and including page numbers), and during the class review share your thoughts on the text.

This book is a waste of time and trees!

This book is well-written and is easy to understand even if a person has no clue about hedge funds and their inner workings. It provides knowledge of partnership accounting relating to hedge funds without using complicated industry lingo. Excellent choice to buy to understand the history of hedge funds and its evolution. It also provides an intimate knowledge of the hedge fund industry today along with relevant regulatory guidelines. Understanding Partnership Accounting (Second Edition)

This book is a good account of the fundamentals of Partnership Accounting. I would suggest that unless you do not have any experience in the space look for a more detailed compilation.

On a brighter note, it serves as a good COMPLETE coverage of the Alternative Investments space from a cursory accounting and record keeping perspective.

I would say read it nonetheless if you have the time/luxury.

-Richie Etwaru

The book is well organized. Practical. A nice starter's book for accountant who wants to get in the door of private equity fund's accounting world.

The book provides an introductory overview of partnership accounting. All the calculations and formulas cited in the book are from its own software. Those similar formulas are also provided in other softwares which are much more commonly used, e.g. MS Excel. Lots of time spent on the tax allocations rather than on the P&L allocations. There're also apparent errors in the formulas as well, such as the annualized return calculation on P. 246.

Straight forward and easy to understand by non professionals. Not only a textbook in classroom, but a guide in real life. You need it to help your personal finance.