If you have any tax skeletons in your closet, beware of the IRS rat. They’re everywhere, scurrying about our small and large business in search of fodder; running rampant in our accounting departments, our social circles and yes, even our homes.

Indeed, a family law attorney once told me, spurned ex-wives sing their songs of bittersweet vengeance to the IRS.

It’s true. The Internal Revenue Service actually pays people to turn in tax cheats.

Correction; it pays them in theory.

The IRS has a special program, the Whistleblower Program, designed to entice citizens to turn informer. Pre-2006, this award was discretionary.

Full Post…

Topeka ? A Kansas House committee is considering a proposal that would eliminate some seldom-used income tax credits.

The panel heard Tuesday from Revenue Secretary Joan Wagnon about several programs designed to encourage investment in Kansas.

Full Post…

The Link between Mid-Life Crisis and Entrepreneurship

A struggling economy could be improved through individual entrepreneurship. Interestingly, who is today’s leading group of new-business starters? The answer may surprise you. Rather than 22-year olds fresh out of Harvard or Stanford, today’s most prominent group is baby boomer entrepreneurs!

The Entrepreneurship Trends

Baby boomers are generally considered to be the generation of babies born between 1945 and 1964.

Full Post…

Are you a good boss or a bad boss? Or, more to the point, do you care what your employees think about you?

Bosses are generally dictatorial because they know it’s the best way to get things done quickly. By contrast, an owner-manger who is too friendly with staff will often fail to command respect and that will be reflected in the running of the company.

Not so long ago, a report was commissioned by the Department for Business to look at the issue of employee/employer engagement. Quite reasonably, the report states that the more leaders and management engage with the rank and file, the more productive and efficient a company will be.

This doesn’t just mean being a nice person.

Full Post…

It looks like the Republicans and Democrats can reach across the aisle.

Some of the time.

On Saturday, a White House Official told the Associated Press that it plans to repeal the 1989 cell phone tax. In fact, the promise of this repeal is included in President Barack Obama’s new budget and spending plan for 2011.

If you’re like the rest of America, you’re probably scratching your head right now. Cell phone tax?

Perhaps a discussion on “taxable fringe benefits” is mandated before we go any further. A taxable fringe benefit is considered pay, even if it’s not monetary. The use of a company-owned Blackberry, for example, is a taxable fringe benefit.

Full Post…