Four Ways Mid-Year Financial Planning Can Pay Off
Tax season is over and one of the biggest American celebrations—the Fourth of July—is just around the corner. Maybe you’re looking forward to a little downtime this summer, so perhaps working on your financial plan has slipped to the bottom of your to-do list. It’s understandable, but putting your finances on cruise control at mid-year…
Summer Break for Your Kids Could Mean a Tax Break for Your Business
School’s out for many kids, and if you run your own business, you may be able to turn your child’s summer break into a tax advantage—and some extra help—for you. Hiring your offspring as an employee to do legitimate work in your business provides several tax benefits: You can deduct the salary you pay your…
The IRS Confirms Hacking of Taxpayer Accounts—What You Need to Know
Last week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that a “brute force” hacking attempt compromised approximately 104,000 taxpayer accounts through the utilization of the “Get Transcript” tool located on IRS.gov. In the attack, hackers utilized information gleaned from black market sources to answer identity verification questions and receive confidential information from the IRS system. The IRS…
Take Time to Really Live Offline
It’s no secret that the majority of Americans are spending a lot of time online. While some of the time we spend on the Internet is productive, there’s a lot of it that’s not—and it’s crowding out some of our higher value offline activities, according to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).…
Want to Improve the Efficiency of Your Business? Toss the To-Do List
When it comes to running a business, building as much efficiency as possible into your operations is the key to keeping things running smoothly and freeing up your own time to focus on the big picture. While employing the right team and the right technology are integral to boosting efficiency, so is having the right…
Tax Day 2015 is Gone. Time to Ask These Three Questions.
Yes, Tax Day has come and gone for this year, but the memory of your tax return is likely still fresh. So before you move on, consider the following three questions that may point you toward areas you want to work on before next April 15 rolls around. Do I need to start my tax…