The straight line

When companies depend on mandatory overtime, they must try to minimize the stress and disruptions it causes in their workers’ lives. Studies show that as overtime is extended, productivity can drop anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent. So regular overtime can become very expensive when you add in the costs of redoing work and the...

The IRS is always skeptical when individual taxpayers claim deductions for bad debt losses. Why? Losses from purported loan transactions often fail to meet the tax-law requirements for bad debt loss deductions. For example, a taxpayer might try to write off a capital contribution to a business entity that underperformed. Or a taxpayer might have advanced...

It’s not too late! You can still take steps to significantly reduce your business’s 2017 income tax bill and possibly lay the groundwork for tax savings in future years. Here are five year-end tax-saving ideas to consider, along with proposed tax reforms that might affect your tax planning strategies. Juggle Income and Deductible Expenditures If you...

Online advertising is expected to grow even more this year. And although Internet advertising is still relatively new, the Federal Trade Commission is watching and going after companies with ads that it doesn’t consider truthful and substantiated. By its nature, the Internet combines aspects of print, television and radio, giving consumers a multimedia, interactive environment. This...

Quality is undeniably the single most important facet involved in retaining your clientele. Improving satisfaction is critical to boosting profits and quality is the key to keeping customers happy. But how do you define quality and inject it into your relationships with customers? By living it.  Your company’s commitment should be to meet or exceed your...

Want to borrow money from your retirement plan? Not so fast. Retirement plan loans can be a viable way to get money in a crunch, but you need to follow the rules about repaying them. If you don’t, it could lead to unfavorable tax consequences, as two taxpayers recently learned the hard way in U.S. Tax...