Tax season is finally here. The deadline for calendar-year corporations to file a return (or an extension) is Monday, March 16. The deadline for individuals to file their income tax returns (or an extension) is Wednesday, April 15. As businesses and individuals start gathering financial records to give to their tax professionals, they should know how...

Disasters never happen at a good time. But the timing is irrelevant. What counts is that your business can recover quickly with minimal long-term effects. And that means having a disaster recovery program in place so that your company is well-positioned to respond to — and rebound from — a wide range of calamities. The issues your...

Workplace violence isn’t just limited to high-risk jobs such as police officers, taxi drivers and late night convenience store clerks. It happens everywhere, as illustrated by recent high-profile cases. Workplace shootings have occurred at all types of businesses including factories, hospitals, engineering firms, advertising agencies and colleges. Testing Issues Some employers have tried testing to gauge the propensity for violence...

The free use of a company car is one of the best perks an employee may be entitled to as part of a compensation package. But the benefit to the employee isn’t completely “free” under current tax law. Essentially, personal use of a company car is treated as a taxable fringe benefit, subject to income tax...

Our father, Daniel Gardiner, started the firm to audit farmer cooperatives, which is still our primary client base. We have a number of clients who have been with the firm the entire 50 years, all cooperatives. Our history with credit unions and our governmental clients starts in the early 1980’s. We have a lot of good memories from all of the years that we have been in business.

Organizations with fewer than 100 employees significantly trail their counterparts in the implementation of formal antifraud controls, according to a worldwide survey by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).  Antifraud experts say formal controls can help small businesses prevent and detect instances of fraud that, left undiscovered, could lead to costly losses and possibly...