#legal
Legal
Legal considerations for business finance and accounting compliance
State Employee Data Privacy Laws in 2026: A Small Business HR Records Guide
As of January 1, 2026, twenty states have comprehensive data privacy laws, but coverage of employee HR records varies sharply — California extends full consumer rights to employees while Colorado and Virginia exempt employment records except for a new Colorado biometric-data carve-out effective July 1, 2025.
FTC's 2026 AI Disclosure Rule for Influencers: A Compliance Guide for Small Businesses
The FTC's 2026 "double disclosure" rule requires sponsored posts to separately disclose AI involvement in addition to paid-partnership status, with penalties up to $53,088 per non-compliant post.
Virtual Medical Scribe Agency Bookkeeping: Billing, Provider Shifts, and the BAA You Can't Invoice Without
A virtual medical scribe agency needs a signed Business Associate Agreement before billing a single shift, and its pricing model — hourly, monthly subscription, or per-encounter — determines when revenue should be recognized and how the chart of accounts should be structured.
The FinCEN Residential Real Estate Rule Is Vacated: A Guide for LLC and Trust Buyers
A Texas federal court vacated FinCEN's Residential Real Estate Rule on March 19, 2026, eighteen days after it took effect, ending the mandatory reporting requirement for all-cash LLC and trust property purchases while FinCEN appeals to the Fifth Circuit.
Independent Private Investigator and Surveillance Agency Bookkeeping: Client Retainer and Trust-Account Handling, State Licensing and Bonding, Per-Case Job Costing, and the KPIs That Keep You Solvent
Retainers are deferred revenue or client trust — track per case, job-cost hours, mileage, advances and subcontractors, classify investigators on control, and run on realization and recovered-expense recovery.
Program-Related Investments: How Private Foundations Recycle Charitable Capital
Program-related investments let a private foundation count loans, equity stakes, or guarantees toward its mandatory 5% annual payout, then reclaim the capital as it's repaid, but PRIs to non-charitable recipients trigger IRS expenditure-responsibility rules with a 20% excise tax and personal manager penalties for noncompliance.
Virginia 2026 Employment Law Changes: A Small Business Guide
Virginia's 2026 employment law changes require salary ranges in job postings, extend Human Rights Act coverage to employers with five or more employees, void non-competes lacking a severance clause, and lower the RetirePath Virginia auto-IRA threshold to five employees, with penalties reaching $10,000 per violation.
Business Valuation in Divorce: How Much Is a Spouse's Company Worth?
Business valuation in divorce hinges on separating enterprise goodwill from personal goodwill and active from passive appreciation, using ASA/ABV/CVA-credentialed methods like income, market, and asset approaches.
The DOL Wants to Rewrite Independent Contractor Rules Again: A 2026 Rule-Change Guide for Businesses That Hire Freelancers
The DOL's February 2026 proposed rule would rescind the 2024 six-factor independent contractor test and replace it with a two-core-factor economic reality test resembling the 2021 rule — here's what changes, what stays the same, and what businesses that hire freelancers should document now.
Executor Accounting: What Fiduciary Duty Requires You to Show Beneficiaries
An executor is a fiduciary, which means beneficiaries have a legal right to a formal accounting of every dollar that moved through an estate — and failing to produce one can trigger removal or personal liability, regardless of whether any money was actually mishandled.
Florida's New Protected Series LLC Law: One Master LLC or Five Separate Ones?
Florida's Uniform Protected Series Provisions (SB 316) took effect July 1, 2026, letting one LLC split into multiple liability-shielded "protected series" — a cost and bookkeeping comparison against forming a separate standalone LLC per property.
New State Disclosure Laws Are Forcing Merchant Cash Advance Providers to Show Their Real Numbers
Ten states now require merchant cash advance providers to disclose an APR alongside the factor rate, turning opaque MCA pricing into an apples-to-apples comparison for small business owners.