Child Care Lake County

Thursday, September 27, 2012

How to End Your Agreement with Parents

By Tom Copeland. Published with permission.

Communication-Barriers-with-a-Teenager-2

There is a right way and wrong way to end your agreement with a parent of a child in your care.

The right way is to follow the terms of your contract. If it requires you to give parents a two-week notice, do so. You and the parent can agree to end your agreement earlier than two weeks if you put it in writing and both sign it.
Here are three tips to follow to improve the chances that the ending of your agreement will go smoothly.
"Terminate at will"
While I recommend that you require parents to give you a two-week notice to end your contract, I also recommend that you do not restrict yourself to the same terms. Instead, put in your contract, "Provider may terminate at will." This gives you the flexibility to end your agreement immediately if the parent is threatening you, creating a disturbance for your business, or refusing to pay you for your services.
Refund payments?
You cannot charge parents for days that you refuse to provide care. Let's say you want to immediately terminate your contract with a parent. It's Friday. The parent has paid you for the past week and has paid you in advance for the last two weeks of care. If you tell the parent she can't come back on Monday, you are obligated to refund her the amount she paid you for the last two weeks.
Did you or the parent terminate care?
Sometimes there is miscommunication between a family child care provider and a parent. If you are in a conflict situation with a parent and are considering terminating care, be sure you communicate clearly. Let's say the parent owes you money for care from last month and you are struggling to collect it. Your contract requires the parent to give you a two-week notice while you may terminate "at will."
When you try to discus this payment issue today, the parent is vague about when she can pay you. You then make one or more of the following statements:
"I can't wait any longer for your payment."
"I've had enough. I don't think I can go on like this."

"You must pay me by tomorrow or I'm going to have to end our agreement."

It's possible that the parent will conclude from any of these statements that you have terminated your agreement the day of this discussion. Let's say the parent doesn't show up tomorrow and you don't hear anything more from her. Has she effectively given you a two-week notice because she hasn't returned? Did you terminate her?
If it's not your intent to terminate your contract immediately, it's important to be clear to the parent that you expect her to bring her child to your program the next day ("I'll see you and your child tomorrow.")
If you are terminating immediately, you cannot expect any payment from the parent for care after that day.
What if, in response to any of your comments above, the parent says, "I'm not coming back." If you want to be able to collect payment for the next two weeks, you need to come to an understanding that the parent is giving her two-week notice. Therefore, say to her, "Does this mean you are giving me your two-week notice?" If the parent agrees, then either write up a short note that says this and get the parent to sign it, or send the parent an email indicating that you are accepting her two-week notice.

If a parent is not showing up for care and has not given you an official notice to end your agreement, send the parent a note, asking for clarification. If you are willing to continue to provide care say, "I have not ended our contract. You are welcome to continue to bring your child to my program. If I do not hear back from you within a week, I will assume you have given me your two-week notice and I will then proceed to take legal action to collect what you owe me under our contract."

If you don't want the parent to return, say, "I'm sorry we couldn't agree to continue our agreement. I'm no longer providing care for your child." Then say either, "You owe me $ under our contract," or "I'm refunding you $ for the days you paid for care after the end of our agreement," or "You do not owe me any additional money."
The language you use is important to be clear whether you or the parent is ending your agreement.
Image credit: whatafy.com

For more information about contracts, see my book Family Child Care Contracts and Policies.
www.tomcopelandblog.com

Conduct a Household Inventory to Save Money

By Tom Copeland, published with permission

There are thousands of dollars worth of tax deductions sitting in your family child care home, waiting for you to report them on your tax return.

These deductions are household items that you are using in your business. These include your washer, dryer, refrigerator, stove, television, beds, tables, chairs, lawn mower and snow blower. In addition to furniture and appliances, you can also include rugs, lamps, bedding, silverware, pots and pans, curtains, towels, tools, and so on.

Anything that you owned before you went into business that is now being used in your business can be claimed as a business expense by depreciating it.

Household items are depreciated over 7 years. If you are using these items for both business and personal use, apply your Time-Space Percentage before depreciating them.

If you are a new child care provider -

Conduct an inventory of all household items by writing them down. This job can be made easier by using my Family Child Care Inventory-Keeper. It is an easy-to-use log that enables you to track your household items by room. In addition, take pictures of each room in your home (including your basement and garage).

Estimate each item's value as of the day you first started using it in your business. Use thrift store or garage sale prices. You don't need a receipt to depreciate these items.

This may seem like a lot of work, but it is well worth your time.

Let's say the value of all your household items was $10,000. If your Time-Space Percentage was 40%, you can depreciate $4,000 ($10,000 x 40%) as a business expense over 7 years. This represents approximately $570 in tax deductions each year for 7 years.

Many child care providers fail to take advantage of the tax rules that allow you to depreciate household items they owned before their business began. Turn over your inventory to your tax preparer and have him/her calculate the depreciation deduction. If you do your own taxes, use my annual Family Child Care Tax Workbook and Organizer to calculate your deduction.

If you have been in business for a number of years, but have not claimed this depreciation deduction, I will be writing a future article on how to recapture these expenses.

Image credit: www.redleafpress.org

For information, see my book Family Child Care Tax Workbook and Organizer.

www.tomcopelandblog.com

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Friday, September 21, 2012

DISABLE ACCES CREDIT, BARRIER REMOVAL TAX DEDUCTION

Are You Taking Advantage of the Disabled Access Credit?

By TOM COPELAND. Published with permission.

Did you know that there are two tax rules that benefit family child care providers who spend money caring for children with disabilities?

All child care providers (whether regulated or not) must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

You must provide "reasonable accommodations" to children with disabilities. Such disabilities include: cerebral palsy, deafness, diabetes, alergies, emotional or mental illness, epilepsy, HIV, AIDS, learning disabilities, blindness, mental retardation, and more.

Most family child care providers have cared for children with disabilities during their career. In the vast majority of cases, it is no big deal. In some situations it may require spending money to make the home more accommodating.

Such expenses made to comply with the ADA can include: Braille books, books on tape, grab bars, bathroom remodeling, wider doorways, ramp, etc.

The IRS Disabled Access Credit allows you to take a 50% tax credit on such expenses over $250 and up to $10,250, for a maximum credit of $5,000.

Use IRS Form 8826 Disabled Access Credit to claim this credit. The credit may not be used to build a new home. The amount of credit from this form gets transferred onto IRS Form 1040.

Here's an example: You spend $2,000 to remodel your bathroom by installing some grab bars next to the toilet and in the bath tub, and widening the bathroom door so a wheelchair can enter. You are entitled to a $875 tax credit ($2,000 - $250 divided by 2). This credit will reduce your taxes by $875. Without this credit, you would have had to depreciate these items over 39 years.

Barrier Removal Tax Deduction

There is a second tax benefit called the Barrier Removal Tax Deduction. This allows you to claim a deduction of up to $15,000 for certain expenses on Schedule Ce, instead of depreciating them over a number of years.

Expenses that qualify for this deduction are limited to removing architectural and transportation barriers such as building a ramp, remodeling a home, or converting a van.

Here's an example: You spend $1,000 to make your van accessible for a wheelchair. Without this tax benefit, you would have to depreciate the $1,000 over 5 years (using the actual car expenses method).

If you didn't spend money on remodeling your bathroom you could claim the credit for this expense ($1,000 - $250 divided by 2 = $375).

If you did both projects, you would add up the total expense ($3,000) and subtract the amount of the credit claimed ($875) = $2,125. This is the amount to be deducted on Schedule C.

By taking advantage of these two tax benefits, you can make caring for children with disabilities a little easier.

Image credit: getagripfl.com

For more information, see my Family Child Care Tax Workbook and Organizer.

Posted by Tom Copeland at 04:53 PM in Record Keeping & Taxes | Permalink
Tom Copeland, www.tomcopelandblog.com

CHILD ABUSE, CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION, SHAKEN BABY SINDROME,

Where to report child abuse.

Where to report child abuse. List for all states in USA
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/reslist/rl_dsp.cfm?rs_id=5&rate_chno=W-00082

Sunday, September 16, 2012

ALERTS: You are a mandated reporter...Use an approved CPR trainer...

A DCFS Licensing Representative set us this alerts

I am sending this to all of my providers. You first and above all else are mandated reporters. If you are aware of a provider who is out of compliance, in which it could be potentially damaging to the children in their care; you have a duty to act on behalf of those children. If you are aware of a daycare that is unlicensed, that too is also potentially damaging to children. One provided is about to lose her only source of income because this worker was not informed when other licensed providers were aware of this providers issues, and yet failed to inform this worker of those concerns. I could have done some preventive maintenance that may have resulted in violations but not the revocation or surrendering her license. If you are aware of something that could be a concern no matter what you may think of the person or what your relationship is with that person; it is better to be safe, cautious, and remember those children come First. This is the responsibility of a mandated reported.

Second always use a CPR/First Aid provider who is approved by either the American Red cross or the American Heart Association.