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Phillip Schein
Earned Income Tax Credit Increases Your Tax Refund
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: January 24, 2012
The Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC helps many hardworking people especially those responsible for others who depend on them for support. This refundable tax credit however has brought about a complex set of rules and regulations for both tax payer and tax preparer. Current EITC information, covering specific eligibility requirements, helps both you and the person who prepares your income tax return comply with changing tax definitions and specific rules of due diligence documenting your eligibility for this valuable earned income tax credit.
Strategic Planning - Your Brand, Your Online Presence, and Long-Term Recognition
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: December 21, 2010
Build your online presence by carefully selecting the URL, the virtual real estate and your brand attributes so that they work in synergy; the whole needs to be greater than the sum of the individual parts. Domain name, logo, product or services, keywords, colors and fonts can provide a subliminal message that leaves a memorable mark on visitors and helps build brand recognition and long-term online reputation.
Strategic Planning - Direct Traffic to Your Online Presence
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: December 20, 2010
Its hard to maintain high visitor return rates. Carefully consider and strategically plan how your online presence, your core website or blog, will change over time. Using Internet venues like Twitter and YouTube can provide relatively inexpensive ways to direct traffic to your virtual real estate. Scheduled tweets offering a discount or announcing new content that recur over time keep announcements fresh without major effort or expense. Avoid mechanical solutions; a carefully planned and executed marketing plan will be recognized, respected and oftentimes rewarded.
Strategic Planning Tips - Your Online Presence Answers 3 Questions
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: December 20, 2010
Your want your online presence to convey a message and leave a memorable impression. You want to grab attention and convey three important bits of information: what I am about, benefits I offer, and how I can be contacted for additional information. You want your online presence and your brand to stand out from the crowd. Plan your marketing message carefully; you want to be noticed and noteworthy...
Preparing Income Taxes - Determining Your Income Tax Refund Or a Balance Due
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: May 5, 2010
There is Income, Adjusted Gross Income, Taxable Income and either refund or balance due. The inevitability of death and taxes is a situation we can, as responsible citizens, come to accept. The ambiguity in the term "income tax return" however, promises us in the United States, from January 1 to April 15, a suspenseful anticlimax that affects both our bank account and our soul.
Preparing Income Taxes - Standard Or Itemized Deductions Reduce Taxable Income
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: May 3, 2010
There are only two events in contemporary life that a person can count on doing; paying taxes and dying. Since both are inevitable; cultivating knowledge of either tax code/explanations or anatomy/physiology is never a waste of personal time. Good health, whether physical or financial, requires a bit of effort and knowledge!
Preparing Income Taxes - The Anatomy of Form 1040 and Adjusted Gross Income
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: May 3, 2010
An understanding of the "anatomical" parts of your Federal Income Tax Return helps you to maintain your financial health by more quickly diagnosing recurring financial ills; you need to treat causes rather than symptoms! When it involves money, you must play "physician" and "heal thyself"!
Preparing Income Taxes - When the IRS Disallows My Schedule C Filing
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: October 13, 2009
Your responsibility as a taxpayer is to report all income and prove every claimed deduction. When you complete a 1040 Schedule C, make certain you can support your for-profit business claims. When business claims are judged by the IRS as not-for-profit activities because no clear profit is sought, there is usually a significant change in reported income.
Preparing Income Taxes - Proving a Business is Not a Hobby
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: October 13, 2009
As a taxpayer, it is your responsibility (burden) to prove your intention to realize a financial profit when you report business income; "just saying it, doesn't make it so"! If you complete a Form 1040 Schedule C as part of your tax return, you must have written records to support your claims. Seek professional tax advice before you try to lower your tax bill by reporting Schedule C business expenses.
Preparing Income Taxes - I'm Married, Should I File Jointly Or Separately?
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: October 13, 2009
There are many issues when deciding whether to file with your spouse or separately. One way to determine the best filing status is to actually prepare the federal (and the state) income tax returns and compare the two tax balances owed (or refunds due).
Preparing Income Taxes - Reporting the Cancellation of Debt
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
Debt cancellation especially pertaining to consumer debt impacts tax planning and tax preparation. Both issues of personal insolvency and receipt of an IRS Form 1099-C will affect the treatment of taxable debt "income" and the final tax bill. Do not overlook the cancellation of any debt when filing your tax return!
Preparing Income Taxes - How Do I Report Information on a 1099-A?
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
Debt cancellation especially pertaining to consumer debt impacts tax planning and tax preparation. Receipt of an IRS Form 1099-A will trigger the need to complete additional paperwork and could adversely affect your final tax bill. Do not overlook the cancellation of any debt when filing your tax return!
Strategic Planning Tips - 3 Tactical Steps That Supercharge a Startup Business
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: September 23, 2009
Want to supercharge your business efforts? Identify and target your fringe audience. Study your market and piggy-back on the competition. Why spend your time and money paying for market research and developing a "new product" when you can assimilate the expertise of your competitors and piggy-back on existing products or services? In many markets, people are slow to change buying behavior. The public tends to have greater confidence in known providers of goods or services than new "faces". They are wary of new concepts. Here are 3 suggestions for a "newbie" entrepreneur who wants to supercharge the start of their online business:
Strategic Planning Tactics - Target Your Competitor's Fringe Market
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: September 23, 2009
One key to developing an energized business plan is to understand your business environment in terms of how your competition "visualizes" your target audience. It would be foolish not to assume your competition has invested their own time and money in what you now can see as a "working" market plan. Why not learn about your target audience from this outside perspective?
Strategic Planning Themes - Help Reduce Effort and Increase Efficiency
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: September 23, 2009
The key to supercharging a strategic business plan is to find ways to maximize results without increasing the levels of effort. Four themes help optimize strategic planning by reducing costs, effort, and risks of failure.
Preparing Income Taxes - Including the Many Different Kinds of IRS Form 1099
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
There are two classes of income information that tax authorities like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) use to track income; IRS Form W-2 and IRS Form 1099. The IRS W-2 family of forms report wages, salaries, tips and, most important, various federal, state, and voluntary tax withholdings. There are however, many forms of compensation and fund distribution that are not considered wages or salary. The large number of different 1099 forms are used to report all this tax-relevant information. Attach a copy of IRS Form 1099 to your tax return when the form shows any taxes withheld from reported compensation or distributions. Here is a list of some of the more common information documents:
Preparing Income Taxes - "Double Dip" Your Retirement Funds With This 2009 Tax Credit
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
Can you believe the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows a legal dollar-for-dollar tax credit "double dip"? You can reduce your income taxes while building your retirement funds if you make any voluntary contributions to a retirement plan in 2009. The Saver's Credit or IRS Form 8880, Credit for Qualified Retirement Savings Contributions, calculates a non-refundable tax credit for those who make salary-deferred contributions or make voluntary contributions to a traditional and/or Roth Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA).
Preparing Income Taxes - When You Withdraw Retirement Funds "Before Their Time"
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
There are a variety of qualified savings/retirement fund plans available to taxpayers. Some like traditional and Roth Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) are specifically designed for a taxpayer's retirement years. Others, like a health (or medical) savings accounts (HSA/MSA) and (Coverdell) Education Savings Accounts (ESA) are established for specialized needs such as medical or educational expenses respectively.
Preparing Income Taxes - 2 Ways Capital Assets Save You Money
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
Understanding the treatment of capital assets can help you with preferential tax rates if you have a capital gain, and carry forward tax credits against future income if you have a capital loss. You need to accurately identify an asset and the period of time you "hold" it. You also need to keep detailed records to support your claims.
Preparing Income Taxes - Why You Need to Know About Capital Assets
Finance: Taxes Income • Published: September 23, 2009
Regardless of how hard the IRS tax code is to understand, knowing what a capital asset is and how long you "hold" it can save you money. Capital assets held for more than a year and a day are taxed less than your marginal income tax rate.
Strategic Planning Tips - 5 Hotspots That Confirm Your Future Success
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: September 21, 2009
Successfully running a small or home-based business requires a different set of strategies from those initially used to start that business. Once you achieve a successful startup, these 5 tips will help you stay successful.
Strategic Planning Tools - Asking 5 Questions Before You Turn on the Autopilot
Internet and Businesses Online • Published: September 21, 2009
The majority of online products and guru seminars deal with big product launches and building niche publishing empires. But what happens after you "host" the party and the people show up? What happens the day after the party? Do you really believe all you need to do is "babysit" your online business?
Strategic Planning - Carefully Consider What You Want
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: September 21, 2009
Goal-directed behavior requires thoughtful strategic planning, resources, and physical effort. It is ironic that most people overlook, or at best, minimize consideration of one, if not the most important, component in this equation.
Strategic Planning Tools - Using Three Key Motivational Tactics
Business: Strategic Planning • Published: September 20, 2009
The motivation aspects of a solid business plan transcend the importance of the triad of time, resources, and task list. Using simple performance measures of "how far you have come" compared to "how short the distance you need to go" will supercharge your strategy and...
Strategic Planning Concepts - Winning the Mental Game
Business: Entrepreneurialism • Published: September 18, 2009
Self-doubt, overwhelming obstacles, and mental fatigue will undermine the most studied plans and the success of even the most seasoned entrepreneur. Here are three keys to reversing factors that could sabotage the best of strategic planning.
