Great Ideas for your Small Business: Know about Economic Development Incentives and Agencies If you are thinking of relocating or expanding your business, be sure to investigate the wide variety of economic incentives and tax breaks. Hundreds of local, state, federal, and private agencies offer scores of programs designed to entice business owners to move … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Take Advantage of a Tax Break The old cliché, “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is” applies to many schemes and scams offered to small business owners. However, an obscure provision of the federal tax code actually gives mom-and-pop businesses a real break. Although it … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Hire an Enrolled Agent to Do Your Taxes Nobody likes to pay taxes. it’s even worse if you’re unhappy with your current tax preparer. If you are thinking about a change, you might consider hiring an enrolled agent. Although they’ve been around since 1884 and prepare millions of tax … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Ask for a Deposit For many entrepreneurs, making a sale is easy. The tough part is getting paid. But without steady cash flow, even the strongest business will starve. In 2000, small businesses buffeted by the recession began asking customers for deposits before they started the work or filled … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Expand Your Vendor Network Is your business overly dependent upon one or two suppliers for the things you need on a regular basis? What would happen if your primary supplier called today and said he or she unexpectedly ran out of the materials you need? What would your employees … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Fight Unnecessary Chargebacks Every year, hundreds of small apparel manufacturers are charged millions of dollars for failing to ship clothing to stores in “floor ready” condition. Retailers, contending that without specifications there would be chaos in their stores, deduct funds for items that are not packed in the right … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Hire a Debt Arbitrator At ten, robert “bobby” blumenfeld was already working the sales floor of his parents’ retail stores in the Catskill Mountains. At twelve, he was selling men’s suits. So Blumenfeld isn’t bragging when he says he knows every aspect of the retail business. He’s worked both … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Join a Captive Insurance Company to Cut Costs Sign maintenance workers perched in “cherry-pickers” three hundred feet above Times Square would make most insurance brokers sweat. But not Richard Butwin, who has been the Artkraft Strauss Sign Co.’s broker for the past seven years. Six years ago, Butwin, a … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Create an Employee Stock-Ownership Plan When a small business owner wants to cash out or pull some equity out of his or her business, there are several options. One of the best options for both employers and employees is an employee stock- ownership plan, or ESOP. ESOPs allow business … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Set Up a SIMPLE Retirement Plan Until recently, a business as small as Grassland Media in Madison, Wisconsin, had few pension plan options for its owners and three employees. The nearly twenty-year-old company, founded by Stu Stroup, makes industrial videos for a variety of clients. “We had been interested … Read more
