How do you determine how much to sell your service so that you can maximize your business’s profits?
Do you have a pricing strategy?
Do you have, and more importantly do you follow, a systematic approach for assigning a price to the professional services you are in the business of providing?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no” or sounds like a resounding “huh,” then this article may contain some valuable insights on how implementing value-based pricing model could be one of the more profitable decisions you could make for your business.
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President-elect Donald Trump has taken the “bull by the horns,” so to speak, and proposed a sweeping tax reform plan that will diminish what goes to the US Treasury in the form of tax revenues in the hopes of stimulating the economy. It should be worth emphasizing that the Trump tax plan is merely a proposal at the time of this writing, and Congress must still approve any final proposal that Trump and his cabinet create once Trump is sworn into office.
What follows is a brief discussion surrounding some of the more significant elements to the Trump plan.
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It is crucial to understand your small business’s tax responsibilities, and there are real risks if you do not. Mismanagement of your tax obligations can ultimately lead to liens, bank levies, collections and wage garnishments, just to name a few of the potential risks.
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Having to manage personal finances is one of the stressful realities that makes up a part of normal daily living. As a single person managing his or her finances, he or she doesn’t have to be concerned with coordinating financial management efforts with anyone else. However, if the scenario involves a couple, such as a husband and wife, an entirely new dynamic is introduced. In theory, at least, there should be some sense of coordination between both members of the couple. What affects one member of the couple affects the other member of the couple, right?
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Before making your next donation to your favorite charity you might want to do some research. Do you really know to whom you’re donating? Do you know the charity’s stated mission? How much of your donation goes toward achieving the charity’s mission? How much of your donation goes toward “overhead” (officer compensation – other than toward the charity’s mission)?
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Expanding a company’s business (or an aspect of its business) internationally might be a good thing. It all depends on a number of variables that need to be closely examined.
I happen to have some relevant first-hand experience in the area of expanding a company’s infrastructure across international boundaries, which, in a very real sense, is similar to introducing a new business or product line across international boundaries.
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When a real estate investor or consumer puts money in the residence where he or she will live, that investment is often among the most expensive that he or she will make. This article will shed light on some of the more significant considerations that need to be made by the investor or consumer as he or she assesses and answers the ultimate question: should I purchase a home to live in or rent a home to live in?
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In the real estate lending world there is typically something called a “Pre-Approval” letter or a “Pre-Qualification” letter. The purpose of these letters is to communicate to the parties in the transaction that the borrower (whoever is trying to get financing), based on preliminary information supplied to the lender, will successfully obtain funding of the mortgage for which the borrower has applied.
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A disaster loss is a loss attributed to a casualty occurring in an area declared by the President of the United States to be a disaster area entitled to federal assistance. Thus, in order to qualify as a disaster loss, the loss must also qualify as a casualty. On the flip-side, however, a disaster loss is not a prerequisite to “casualty” status.
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Brexit is an abbreviation for the term “British exit.” On June 23, 2016, a referendum was passed by voters in the United Kingdom approving the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. This disassociation from the European Union (“EU”) was met with a great deal of excitement from around the world, in addition to uncertainties concerning the impact on financial markets as a consequence from “the exit.” Market reactions toward the event were in some cases severe.
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In our May 2015 newsletter article “Understanding Reverse Mortgages,” we presented an overview of what reverse mortgages are all about. We described briefly some of the features of a reverse mortgage: how a reverse mortgage works, how borrower eligibility works (and what it takes to qualify for a reverse mortgage), and we touched on some of the benefits afforded to a prospective borrower by a reverse mortgage. The purpose of this article is to provide further detail on reverse mortgages and how they aid a borrower in reaching their financial goals.
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If you’re an investor who is looking to sell property, IRC Sec 1031 has good news for you: you can defer any and all capital gains by reinvesting the proceeds of your sale into new property. As IRC Section 1031 (a)(1) states:
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Many people use the term “tax planning,” but it is often misunderstood. It is the art of learning how to manage your affairs in ways that postpone or avoid taxes. Skilled tax planning means more money to save and invest, and it can make the tax season more of a financial boost instead of a financial burden.
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Did you know that under current law, any family or individual who pays a household employee more than $2,000 (2016) a year must withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, also known as FICA. The law mandates that all domestic workers, such as cooks, nannies, housekeepers and gardeners, are subject to this combination of tax types known as the “nanny tax.” Federal unemployment insurance taxes must also be paid if the household pays any number of employees a total of $1,000 or more in a calendar quarter.
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So what happens when you inherit retirement plans? It all depends on the type of account. It also depends on whether the beneficiary is a spouse. Those variables will determine the rules that govern how the inheritance is taxed and what options are available. These rules can be confusing and it’s highly recommended that you seek out professional advice to make sure that your understanding is valid before making any decisions that would have significant financial impact.
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With the amount of taxes the IRS already collects from taxpayers—as well as the ever-increasing cost of living self-employed—tax payers can ill afford to overlook claiming as many deductions as the IRS makes available. The income and expense situation of self-employed taxpayers are widely recognized as fertile hunting grounds for a wide variety of deductions.
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If you’re like me, then this is probably not the first time you’ve ever heard of rent-to-own as an alternative to more traditional methods of home purchase. Rent-to-own is frequently advertised as an option for those folks who are precluded from buying a home because of credit issues or the inability to come up with the cash for a down-payment.
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Do you happen to be one of many who has dreamt about going into business for yourself but couldn’t put your finger on what kind of business to start? Perhaps you have an idea of what kind of business to start but fear has got in the way of taking the plunge. A degree of fear and trepidation are understandable, and maybe even a good thing, in the sense that they translate into being ultra-careful and not impetuous. In other words, becoming a business owner should not be taken lightly.
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Tired of writing those rent checks that seem to get you little, if anything, for your money? It’s understandable, then, that you would consider tapping into your 401(k) funds to come up with the down payment to pay for the purchase of your first home. These sentiments are no doubt exacerbated if the resources you need for that dream house are just sitting there in your 401(k) account.
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For ages it has seemed that claiming the home office deduction on your tax return was a sure-fire invitation for an IRS audit. In fact, on many occasions, taxpayers had been advised to forego claiming this deduction even when they seemed to satisfy the IRS requirements to legitimately take the deduction. The IRS’s stance was based on the relative ease and susceptibility of abuse when it came to the home office deduction.
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A necessary step in the initial stages of setting up your new business is to determine which form of business ownership structure to adopt. The ownership structure that may prove to be most appropriate will depend on circumstances such as:
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A Not For Profit (NFP) organization operates not for the purpose of generating and distributing profits to the owners, but the purpose of generating and distributing profits--i.e. revenue less normal operating expenses--in furtherance of some public good or one or more social causes.
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While recently assisting a friend who is researching assisted living options for a loved one, I was surprised to come across so much information available online discussing the option of retiring to live on a commercial cruise ship. I think just about everyone is familiar with the option of living in an assisted living home (i.e. retirement home or skilled nursing facility). But to see how popular this cruise ship option is--to take up permanent quarters on a cruise ship among so many retirees--came as a big surprise.
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The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the basics of constructing and using a financial budget.
A budget is a tool that is intended to provide management with a control mechanism for monitoring the organization’s performance. The organization’s performance is evaluated on the basis of financial inflows (income) and financial outflows (expenditures).
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The term “project management” refers to a more specialized management and control process that is associated with particular activities that fit within the definition of a “project.”
Projects are unique (not routine) activities undertaken by an organization in order to achieve certain goals that inherently carry a higher degree of risk than normal. The theory is that the risk associated with the defined project can be better managed, mitigated and controlled by applying what’s referred to as the project management process or “framework.”
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It is widely agreed that all small businesses, no matter which industry, go through similar definable stages of growth. Researchers have found that each growth stage has certain “personality traits,” so to speak, which distinguish one growth stage from another. There are discernable characteristics of each growth stage which, if recognized and understood, can be useful for understanding and identifying the organization’s progress.
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At first glance it might seem more than just a little odd that a large number of debtors surveyed were reluctant to take advantage of alternative “non-government” financing options—i.e. refinancing their student loans for a more attractive interest rate. This begs the question: why won’t a larger number of student loan debtors take advantage of refinancing alternatives that would lower their effective interest rate?
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A 529 College Savings Plan is a plan operated by a state or educational institution, with tax advantages and potentially other incentives to make it easier to save for college and other post-secondary training for a designated beneficiary, such as a child or grandchild.
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Owning a business is a dream shared by many. The dream of an independent professional lifestyle, self-made financial success, and “being the boss” is not uncommon. Unfortunately, the proportion of those entrepreneurs who have invested valuable time, money, and heart-felt emotions in search of the independent “being the boss” lifestyle have fallen short of the mark. Also unfortunate is how the pain and suffering endured throughout the effort of trying to start one’s own business is not confined to just the individual investor but also to the rest of the family.
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Many of us will eventually face what it’s like to engage a professional caregiver to help care for the needs of someone we love. It’s not an easy task, and sometimes it can be frightening as we entrust the life of a loved one to someone outside of the family. The process of finding the right person to help our loved one securely stay in their home can seem like a daunting undertaking. Even though the benefits of having help are obvious, the idea of inviting a stranger to live in your home and take care of a loved one makes many people feel uncomfortable.
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