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Alpha-Mail 
The Tax Professional's Guide to Georgia Tax Credits, Courtesy of Alpharesults
Vol. V No. 12 December 2011
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Hello!
Welcome to Alpha-Mail, the monthly newsletter about Georgia tax credits for Georgia tax professionals.
This month, we'll help you with clients who think they are too busy to get tax credits. Also, find out what's up with the Georgia Competitiveness Initiative. Finally, see how the new Federal Meaningful Use incentives can provide big Medicaid $$ for your physician practice clients. We hope you can use this information to strengthen your client relationships! Thank you for reading Alpha-Mail -- please click reply to tell us what you think. All the best, 
Dale Stapler Jim Tinsley
Alpharesults, LLC |
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No More Projects, Even for Tax Credits!
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You have probably heard your clients say they don't want any more projects because they are too busy. We see many businesses where the equity owners want the tax credits, but their administrative team has other priorities (and there is nothing in it for them personally). Here are a few points that could help when you talk with your clients:
- The $$ benefit is available NOW - The client pays Georgia income taxes and has installed new software. But with the one year amended tax return limitation, this tax credit may be gone forever (you snooze, you lose).
- All the information you need is fresh - vendor invoices, HR/payroll data, and employee training information (so it's easy to gather).
- Benefit to everyone - The tax credit $$ can be re-invested into the business to help it be more successful and grow (maybe pay raises for employees?).
We recently helped a 16-employee physician practice get a credit of over $17,000 for their new EMR software. The practice manger said she spent about 1 hour over the entire duration of the project. Her value added was over $17,000. How many projects can provide hard ROI of $17,000/hour net-after-tax cost savings to a business?
Your clients need your help to see the bigger picture of tax credit benefits and to understand that priorities may need to be temporarily changed.
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Georgia Competitiveness Initiative Progress
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GCI is in its Quiet Phase -- in other words, either they are writing their report due 12/31 or they decided to take the holidays off!
No, hopefully they are putting the finishing touches on the report this week and we should all see something in early January. After that, it goes to our policy makers to be converted into legislation. That's what they call making sausage!
Here's what we think they want to do -
- Make targeted changes to tax policy, but no wholesale tax reform in this election year
- Maintain statutory incentive tax credits, but make some of them more effective for economic development and job creation
- Add State discretionary incentives to help close economic development deals for Georgia
Earlier this month, I attended the State Legislature's "Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure" hearing at the Capitol. Called at the last minute, only about half of the members attended, so nothing got done, at least on the surface!
We will keep you updated throughout the 2012 Session!
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Healthcare -- Meaningful Use $$ Medicaid
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For physician practices that have Medicaid patients, we talked with Don Betts, Georgia Tech, who is a service delivery partner with GA-HITREC (click here). Don specializes in assisting physician practices in achieving Meaningful Use, and here is an overview of what he had to say regarding Medicaid's Meaningful Use: Healthcare providers can receive a maximum of $63,750 from Medicaid over a six year period. Eligible Professional (EP) means more provider types than the Medicare incentive - in addition to physicians, it includes nurse practitioners, midwives, dentists and physician assistants at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). The incentive is based on using a certified Electronic Health Record (EHR) in a defined Meaningful Use way. The Meaningful Use requirements will be phased in over 3 stages and several years, with Stage 1 having started in 2011. Medicaid is making it easier to receive the incentive for 2011 and 2012. EPs don't have to meet Stage 1 requirements but merely show that they have adopted, implemented, or upgraded to a certified EHR. Here are some takeaways for Medicaid Stage 1 (2011 and 2012):
- How much $$: Each EP that has a minimum of 30% Medicaid patient encounters (20% for Pediatricians) can receive $21,250 in year one. For example, if there are 5 EPs in the practice, then there may be up to $106,250 (5 x $21,250) of incentives for year 1. Each EP's patient volume needs to be reviewed to determine if there is potential. They can also qualify as a group.
- Who gets paid: Similar to Medicare, payments are made to the individual EP (his or her SSN) or to the physician practice (the practice's TIN number). The EP may reassign the incentive $ to the physician practice.
- How to get paid: To get paid for year 1, each EP has to register with CMS, then "attest" with DCH by showing proof of the EHR upgrade and completing a volume calculator.
- State of Georgia: The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) administers the meaningful use program (click here ).
- HIPAA: don't forget to review the new privacy and security requirements.
One final note -- many physician practices have already qualified for Stage 1 and have received their checks. This is real money flowing to the practices (for details, click here ). If your client has potential, make sure they can benefit!
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Quick Update
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The Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) has just released the 2012 Tier Rankings (click here) used for Job and Investment Credits. |
About Us------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alpharesults has assembled a team with the specialized knowledge and approach required to obtain Georgia income tax credits. We are not a public accounting firm. Rather, our services complement those of public accounting firms and do not create conflicted loyalties, because our professionals do not perform attestation work or other external audit functions. We focus on small to medium-sized businesses and work exclusively in Georgia with a wide variety of in-state and out-of-state accounting firms. For more information on our services, follow this link. |
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