Business Finance Tips

Every business must take the right steps to cultivate the culture it desires. The culture is the single greatest force that affects your employees. You want all employees to convey the feelings and attitudes that best support your company’s goals. No matter how many employees you have, you want all of them to project the coherent company culture that you want customers, vendors, and others to perceive about your company.

Your corporate culture does not relate directly or exclusively to your profit margin. Rather, it relates to the emotional health and well-being of your employees which is closely related to your profit margin. Be sure your employees get the right training to do their job well and to grow professionally. Be sure that the work pace is sustainable and will result in good quality. Always show employees that you appreciate their contributions and reward special achievements.

You can gauge the health or your corporate culture by observing your employees. You want to hear laughter in the office, and you want employees to be focused. If you notice the absentee rate increasing or employees taking longer lunches and breaks, it may mean that your corporate culture needs to be revisited. On a regular basis, have lunch or coffee with different employees and ask them to discuss their concerns and make suggestions.

To really show your employees that you care more about them than profit, schedule a social event during work hours.

Jo Ann Joy, Esq., MBA, CEO
Copyright 2006 Indigo Business Solutions. All rights reserved.

With a stable currency, the UK has attracted a large number of big and small enterprises to its province. When a company is conceptualized, besides the tremendous amount of preparation, complicated processes are undertaken for its legal foundation. The entire process of company incorporation is termed as company formation or registration.

In the UK, the company registration process has been simplified by the Companies House, an Executive Agency of the UK Government Department for Business. The Agency has introduced online registration for companies, which enable entrepreneurs to electronically register their business within a matter of a few hours. In August 2009, a total of 28,222 companies (26,782 in England and Wales and 1,440 in Scotland) have been incorporated.

Company Incorporation: Key Requisites
Although company incorporation is not a difficult task to perform, the enormous paperwork can prove time consuming. The electronic process is comparatively less taxing on one’s time, energy and money. However, to benefit from the procedure, one can hire the services of an authorized company registration agent.

Electronic or manual, both the processes would require submission of the following documents along with a standard registration fee of

Introduction – S corp vs C corp

The difference between C corporations and all the other entities is that C corps pay their own tax – they are not pass-through entities. The corporation pays corporate income tax on its profits at the following rates:

Getting out and conducting business is a basic necessity for any business person these days even with the easy of digital communications coming on like mad. Fortunately, Congress knows as much and tax law has long allowed for the deduction of costs related to driving around on business.

If you are looking for a simple tax deduction that can really make a dent in your tax liability, the business mileage deduction is a pretty good choice. The deduction is organized in an easy and logic way – a real shocker considering we are talking about a tx issue. Regardless, one just multiplies your total business mileage for the year by a mileage deduction rate issued by the IRS. The resulting total is your deduction amount.

The IRS has just announced the business mileage deduction rate for the 2009 tax year will be 55 cents a mile. This is an increase of 4.5 cents over the 2008 figure. So, what does this mean? Well, let’s assume you drive 5,000 miles in 2009 on business. You would calculate your tax deduction by multiplying 5,000 x 55 cents to come up with a total of $2,750. Any way you slice it, that is a very nice deduction.

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind with this deduction. The first has to do with when you can claim it. The 55 cent rate applies to your 2009 mileage, not your 2008 mileage. This means that you can only use this rate when you sit down to calculate your 2009 taxes in the first quarter of 2008. What about for the 2008 year? That rate is 50.5 cents.

A second cautionary note has to do with unwanted attention from the IRS. There can be a temptation to expand a bit on the miles used in calculating this deduction. Don’t. The IRS is more than aware of the temptation. When it does audits, it will ask for evidence of the mileage being incurred. This means you need to keep a log detailing the mileage. If you don’t, the entire deduction may be tossed out.

The business mileage deduction is great because it is one of those deductions you can take year after year. To its credit, the IRS has also shown a tendency recently to adjust it to match changes in gas prices if things start getting crazy. With falling gas prices, we’ll have to hope the IRS does not adjust the rate down in 2009, bit it might so keep an eye out for any changes.

If you are considering making the jump to incorporate your business, there is a lot of information and research that needs to be done prior to your decision. Business incorporation has its pros and cons just like everything in the business world. In order to make sure that the business incorporation goes smoothly, it is always smart to hire an attorney to assure yourself that the paperwork is filled out correctly and everything goes to plan.

The forms for business incorporation include articles of incorporation that conform to the state law. They must be filed with the correct state authorities along with the filing fees, initial franchise taxes and other initial fees. One of the easiest ways to fill out these forms is through BizFilings. All you have to do in order to incorporate your business is complete the online order form and BizFilings handles the rest.

There are many advantages to going through the business incorporation process. One of the primary advantages is the limited liability the corporate entity affords its shareholders. With the shareholders not being liable for the debts of the corporation, shareholders are free of obligation to the company. Another advantage to incorporating your business is the fact that ownership of the corporation is easily transferable. If you decide after a year or two that you don’t want to have full responsibility for the corporation any more, you can sell it or have someone take over very easily.

Having a corporation allows you to raise capital much easier through the sales of stocks. If that weren’t enough to get you to go through the business incorporation process, it’s soothing to know that you can be taken care of in the future as well. By being involved in a corporation your retirement funds such as a 401k are set up much more easily to ensure that you are taken care of after retirement.

While there are many benefits to business incorporation, there are also the downsides you have to face. The primary downside you will notice with a corporation is double taxation. Profits of a corporation are taxed twice when distributed to the shareholders; once as income to the corporation and another time as income to the shareholder. Other disadvantages to incorporating your business include the increase of paperwork and extensive record keeping that is required.

When going through the business incorporation process, there are many decisions that you have to make. It is a huge jump in your life and you have to determine if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. If you do decide that incorporating your business is worth it, you then have to make sure to fill out all the legal documents correctly and submit them to the right place. Hiring an attorney is not necessary by any means, but is recommended. At the end of the day you have to realize that business incorporation is a huge decision and could change your life, so make sure that you are 100% sure on the decision you go with.