From what I understand, dancing isn’t everyone’s idea of easy or comfortable — but that doesn’t mean you can’t dance! With wedding season approaching, now is the perfect time to practice and create a wedding dance that will blow all your friends away. I’ve stepped in as your dance instructor and have turned a couple of my signature moves into GIFs to help ease you into dancing. (P.S. Check out more moves here in We Can Dance video supercut!) The key to mastering those pop star moves is practice and really listening to the music that’s playing. Remember to feel the beat and add in your own flavor, but most importantly, always keep your knees bent and play with your levels.
Swinging the Hips
Let’s start off with your hips! Notice how my hips are what lead my body from side to side. This is a great example of keeping your knees bent and staying low. If you try doing this move with stiff knees you will look like something is up with your butt — not cute. Don’t be afraid to add more! Add in a little shoulder roll or hair toss. Just think — would Beyoncé do this? If the answer is yes, then do it!
The next basic move you should master is the body roll. Start by leading with your head followed by your chest and then end with your butt sitting in a chair. Notice how I also bend my knees.
Body Roll
This is another move where it’s all about those hips! Start by stepping forward on your right foot and pushing your hips right, then step back on your left foot pushing your hips to the left. Bring your right foot back together with your left and step right, left, right while moving your hips in the same direction as your feet. Throw your arms in for some extra flavor!
Salsa Step
To make this move more modern, you really want to focus on accenting with your body. Keep all your weight on the balls of your toes and move your hands in a semi circle up towards your right shoulder while pivoting your heels to the right. Bring your hands and heels back to center and semi circle your hands to your right hip while pivoting your heels to the right. You will also want to get your torso involved in this move to give it some extra flavor. Pretend like your boobs are drawing a half circle along with your hands. Really hit the end points hard to show everyone on the dance floor that you’ve got sass.
Modern Day Twist
Now let’s focus on the shoulders by doing the Harlem shake. Lead with your right shoulder, and bring your arm to the center of your body. Then move your shoulders right, left, right (pushing them in the upward direction). Swing your left shoulder around so your left arm is in front and move your shoulders left, right, left. This move is also about the torso and levels. When you swing your leading arm to the center of your body you will want to be more hunched over and when you do the quick left, right, left, you will want to be more upright.
Harlem Shake
This move incorporates your chest, arms, legs, hips and butt. To start, you want to be bent over at the hips with one leg in front of the other and your knees bent. Bring your arms up, cross them in front of your chest and give a chest pop. Then bring your arms down to the side, turn your knee out and pop your butt. Now wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop, wop… the song goes on forever ;)
The Wop
Let’s put a few moves together. Start by stepping out to the left with your left foot and reaching across your body with your right arm and pretend to push a heavy box over to the right hand side. Bring your right foot to meet your left and then step backwards on your left, to the right with your right and then move your left to be parallel with your right foot. (This move is called a Pas de Bourree.) Kick right, left, right, then step your feet together. Complete the same steps moving to your right. Step with your right and push the heavy box with your left. Step back right, to the side left and then step parallel with your right. Kick left, right, left.
Slide and Kick
Who doesn’t want to be one of the girls in the Sorry music video? No one. Start by stepping out with your left foot, and with your left arm straight, circle your right arm around your head once. Bring your feet back together and then step out on your left foot again and circle with your right arm. Then drop it low four times, switching your arms (right leading upwards) on the upward bounces.
Justin Bieber’s Sorry Dance
Ok let’s put some moves together in a little routine! You are going to travel in a half circle, stepping out with your right foot and moving in a counter clockwise direction. When you step on your foot, move your hips right, left, right while sitting into it. Then start with your body rolls. Add in your hands and pretend you are pushing down on a heavy box. Body roll to the left and then to the right. Step backwards right, left, right leading with your butt and moving your hand like you are waving a flag left, right, left.
Small Routine
But most importantly, don’t forget to freestyle and have some fun! You got this girl — let your inner Bey shine!
Welcome to Selfmade Finance School, our new money series with Block Advisors to help small business owners with their tax, bookkeeping, and payroll needs year-round. This week, we explore the tax implications of bringing family members into your business.
The question for today is this: Does hiring your family members make sense for your business? Let me be clear. This is not a piece about whether hiring your family members makes sense for your relationships with those family members. As someone who is part of a family business, I could fill up a lot more than 600 words on my opinions about that. For today's purposes, we focus on whether it makes sense from an overall "good business and tax implication" perspective. As it turns out, there is a decent amount of tax nuance when it comes to employing your family. Let's break it down based on relationship to the employee:
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Spouses Who Are In Business Together
Personally, if I had to be in business with my husband, it would not go well. However, many couples build viable, strong businesses together and I say, good for them! Depending on how you have your business entity structured, it will make a big difference on the tax treatment of you and your spouse working as partners. Because a business jointly owned and operated by a married couple is generally treated as a partnership for Federal tax purposes, the spouses must comply with filing and record keeping requirements imposed on partnerships and their partners. The election to file two Schedule C (Form 1040) forms, (one for each spouse) permits certain married co-owners to avoid filing partnership returns, provided that each spouse separately reports a share of all the businesses' items of income, gain, loss, deduction, and credit. Under the election, both spouses will be subject to self-employment tax and on net earnings from self-employment and receive credit for Social Security earnings.
One Spouse Employs Another
If you have a dynamic where your spouse is an employee of your business, then your spouse's wages are subject to income tax withholding, Social Security and Medicare taxes. If you are self-employed (not a corporation or a partnership), your spouse's pay does not have to be included in your federal unemployment tax account (FUTA) contributions and payments. However, if your business is a corporation or a partnership you must include that spouse's pay in your unemployment tax contribution calculation.
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You Employ Your Child
First, let's be clear. I work in my family business, but I am an adult, so I am treated just like a normal employee. However, if you, for example, run a family restaurant and want to hire your children under 18 to work for you, there are some tax benefits. But first, you should check with your state for rules on how many hours minors can work (in non-agricultural jobs) and reference the Fair Labor Standards Act for information on limitations on the kinds of work children can perform.
"This is an often overlooked or under-utilized strategy. Paying your children for true services they provide in your business can be a powerful tax-saving tool," says Cathi Reed, Block Advisors Regional Director. "If you are a sole-proprietorship or single member LLC, and the child is less than 18 years of age, the business is not required to withhold FICA or payroll taxes. The child can use his or her standard deduction against income you pay."
You Hire Your Parent
Oh dear. If you are brave enough to do this, know that you will need to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on your parent's wages and make the appropriate withholdings, but you don't have to pay unemployment taxes. Now all you have to do is convince your parent that you are the boss. Have fun with that!
Is Hiring Family Members Worth It For The Tax Benefits?
"There are some positive tax advantages to hiring family members. It's important to treat a family member like any other employee. Hiring your children can result in substantial savings for businesses. Make sure your child has real, age-appropriate work to do and a reasonable pay rate, comparable to other employees. Consult with a Block Advisors small business certified tax pro to ensure that you are complying with all requirements," advises Reed. "Block Advisors, a team within H&R Block, is dedicated to meeting the tax, bookkeeping and payroll needs of small business owners year-round. To start working with the tax experts at Block Advisors, visit blockadvisors.com."
In my opinion, you should not hire a family member solely because of the tax benefits. You should always hire based on whether that person is right for the job and keep in mind how this hire could materially impact your relationship with that person and others in your family. Finally, as I mentioned, make sure you have a tax professional on your team when making these determinations. As you can see, things can get a little tricky!
*All details were sourced from IRS.gov and blockadvisors.com
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect those held by Kestra Investment Services, LLC or Kestra Advisory Services, LLC. This is for general information only and is not intended to provide specific investment advice or recommendations for any individual. It is suggested that you consult your financial professional, attorney, or tax advisor with regards to your individual situation. Comments concerning the past performance are not intended to be forward looking and should not be viewed as an indication of future results. Securities offered through Kestra Investment Services, LLC (Kestra IS), member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Kestra Advisory Services, LLC (Kestra AS), an affiliate of Kestra IS. O'Keeffe Financial Partners and any other entity listed herein is not affiliated with Kestra IS or Kestra AS Investor Disclosures: https://bit.ly/KF-Disclosures