In Honor of Earth Day...

In honor of earth day I thought I'd write about a practice I've undertaken in my business and personal life for the last year -removing my name from mass mailings. How much of the mail you receive each day is simply pitched into "File 13" unopened and unread? Well instead of simply pitching, I now take the time to remove my name from the mailing list, and then pitch (of course into the recycle bin).

Happily there is a great organization on the web -that makes this process a little simpler. It's called Catalog Choice.org. This organization has a great website where you simply search for the company whose catalog you no longer want to receive -select it, fill out any additional information requested and your done! They will submit the request and hopefully in a few weeks you will find you are no longer receiving those catalogs. And the best part? This site is absolutely free (though you can make a donation to help fund their operation if you choose)

It's good for the economy and good for the earth. Think how much money is wasted printing and mailing those catalogs? Wouldn't that money be better spent on JOBS!! And let's not mention how much landfill these catalogs create.

Please do your part and start removing your name from unwanted catalog mailings instead of just pitching the catalogs into your recycle bin...every little green thing we do helps makes the world a better place.

Small Business -First Year of Business

I read this article the other day and thought I'd pass it along as it has some good tips:

How to Swim Not Sink in the First Year of Business.

At the bottom of the page is a link to the writer's website: takecommand.org which is a subscription based website but has a lot of good free valuable information. I haven't subscribed so can't comment on the paid information content, but I found a lot of good information for new businesses within the free content.

January 31 is deadline for many tax forms, are you in compliance?

Annual payroll forms 944/941/940/943 are due January 31, 2011 (if all taxes have been paid timely the deadline is extended by 10 days to February 10, 2011).

W-2s should be prepared and issued to your employees by January 31, 2011. You have until Feb 28 to submit copies to the SSA (March 31 if you electronically file)

1099's should also be prepared and issued by January 31, 2011. You have until Feb 28, 2011 to file the IRS copy (March 31 if you efile).

Who do you issue a 1099-misc to? Remember this applies to business and rental property, but not personal payments:

"File Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, for each person to whom you have paid during the year:

• At least $10 in royalties (see Box 2 on page 4) or broker payments in lieu of dividends or tax-exempt interest (see Box 8 on page 7);

• At least $600 in rents, services (including parts and materials), prizes and awards, other income payments, medical and health care payments, crop insurance proceeds, cash payments for fish (or other aquatic life) you purchase from anyone engaged in the trade or business of catching fish, or, generally, the cash paid from a notional principal contract to an individual, partnership, or estate;

• Any fishing boat proceeds; or

Gross proceeds of $600 or more paid to an attorney. See Payments to attorneys on page 2."

Here is a great link to a calendar that shows various tax deadlines for 2011: IRS Tax Calender. You might want to bookmark it so you have it at your finger tips.

Also for those who only have a few 1099-misc forms or W-2's to file , you can file them for free at

fileyourtaxes.com

Tax Changes for Small Businesses...

Happy New Year -instead of rewriting information, I've decided to post links to items I feel are newsworthy to my clients.

Here's a link to a summary of a few important tax changes for Small Business made in 2010.

Tax Changes for Small Business

Here are the 2010 & 2011 Standard Mileage rates: Standard Mileage rates for 2011 and 2010 standard mileage rates.

Trying to update a little more...

Ok I've been lax about keeping this blog up to date. I've been busy working on those tax returns.

This fall promises to be interesting with a lot of tax cuts on the table -will they be renewed or will the AXE fall?

Here is a link to a neat little tax calculator which lets you see how the proposed changes might affect you and your family:

Tax Calculator brought to you by the Tax Policy center.

Standard Mileage Rates released for 2010

The IRS has released the 2010 optional standard mileage rates that employees, self-employed individuals and other taxpayers can use to compute deductible costs of operating automobiles (including vans, pickups and panel trucks) for business, medical, moving and charitable purposes.


The rates are as follows:

Business Mileage Rate: The standard mileage rate for business mileage in 2010 will be 50 cents per mile

Medical, Moving Mileage Rate:  The standard mileage rate for medical and moving expenses will be 16.5 cents per mile.

Charitable Mileage Rate: The standard mileage rate for charitable purposes will remain at 14 cents per mile.

Changing times...changing technology

It seems these days "print" is out. So in keeping with the times our newsletters have been discountinuted and have been replaced by a blog. The blog will bring to you timely information on the latest tax laws, tax cases and other tidbits of information I feel will benefit you and your business.

This is a work in progress-there will be many improvement made over the next few weeks.

Be sure to become a follower of this page (click on "follow" link at the right of this page) to be notified of new posts. You can also find us on twitter and facebook so be sure to become a fan of our pages there too!