Plain-English answers to the tax, accounting, and small business questions Mindy Kiliszewski hears most often from Grand Rapids, MI clients — written for Michigan business owners and residents, not search engines.
What a write-off really is, what it is actually worth once it reaches the return, and the tax year 2026 limits that apply before it does.
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Every category worth claiming for tax year 2026 — and, for each one, the record that makes it stick. Free PDF, no email required.
A free calculator that estimates your 2026 Michigan income tax — and, unlike every other one, adds Grand Rapids or Walker city tax on top.
Client dinner or crew lunch? For tax year 2026 one is still 50% deductible and the other is not deductible at all. Here's the split, and what to write on the receipt.
Michigan does not tax LLCs — it taxes how you elected to be treated. Here is what a Michigan LLC owner actually files for tax year 2026, and why the state bill is the small one.
The tax Google shows you first was replaced in 2012. Here is the real list of Michigan business taxes for tax year 2026 — and the change that costs contractors more than the rate does.
Michigan charges 6% with no local add-on — but the license rules, use tax and the contractor rule catch business owners out. What applies for tax year 2026.
It is refundable, it covers renters as well as homeowners, and it is claimed with your MI-1040 rather than filed separately — which is exactly why so many Michigan households never claim it.
The four things a CPA is actually licensed to do, what separates one from an accountant or a bookkeeper, what a CPA can't do — and the honest answer to whether you need one at all.
Michigan lets 24 cities levy their own income tax, and Grand Rapids is one of them. Who actually owes it, what the 2026 rates are, and why Walker catches so many filers out.
Michigan taxes income at a flat 4.25% — there are no brackets, and the state constitution forbids them. Here are the rates by year, the exemptions that come off first, and the two 2026 changes that catch people out.
What bookkeeping actually costs — price ranges by delivery model, the six factors that move a quote, and the in-house comparison almost every guide gets wrong.
The IRS does not require accounting software — it says so in writing. Here is how to build books in Excel that hold up, and the four signs you have outgrown them.
A Grand Rapids CPA's guide to small business bookkeeping — the four jobs that matter, a six-step setup, QuickBooks Online vs Xero, and the Michigan rules national guides skip.
Michigan has no inheritance or estate tax on anyone who died after September 30, 1993. What still applies: the federal threshold, basis on inherited assets, and the returns someone has to file.
What a CPA actually does that a bookkeeper doesn't, which one your Grand Rapids small business needs first, when you need both, and how each is paid — from a Michigan CPA who does both.
The honest answer to the most-asked question from Michigan small business owners and individual filers — including tax prep fees, bookkeeping rates, business return pricing, and what affects the final number.
Every blog post starts with a real question from a real client. If there's a tax, accounting, or small business question you wish was covered, send it in — it might become the next post.
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