Business News

At First Bank in Valencia, we’ll treat you like family.  That’s not a slogan, but a promise from one of the oldest family-owned, privately held banks in the country.  We’ve been around for nearly 100 years, providing families and businesses with caring service with a personal touch.  We are also committed to the communities where you live, work and raise families.  Unlike other banks, we are not for sale.  Not ever.  We’ll be here to serve you for generations to come and we guarantee it.

Make a New Year’s resolution to bring financial security into your life.  It’s easy to let things get out of control, running up credit cards, not reconciling your checkbook or not saving for big-ticket items such as vacations, education and furniture.  Borrowing money to cover your recurring and non-recurring expenses is a formula for disaster.

California labor laws state that if you are injured during the course and scope of your employment, your only remedy is to receive workers’ compensation benefits.  However, there are exceptions to this rule.

The online market has grown and is still growing quite rapidly.  Through global sourcing and multinational purchasing activities, the online market is utilized in ways that it wasn’t when it was first conceived.  Global sourcing, for one, now has no boundary in respect to using the online market to move forward with necessary operations.  The Internet is available 24/7, so global sourcing operations need to be as well.

First, let’s make sure we are all on the same page.  Mediation is not arbitration.  Arbitration is when a third party is selected to resolve the dispute.  Whatever that person says is binding on both parties.  Basically, the parties agree upon a third party to act as the “judge and jury.”  After giving the parties the opportunity to present their side of the story and to present any relevant documents or other evidence, the arbitrator decides who wins and who loses.  The rules as to how arbitration is conducted is typically left to the agreement of the parties.

Many tax payers, whether individuals or businesses, need an efficient, effective filing system for their tax related documents.  Tax related documents include records that identify sources of income, keep track of expenses, determine the value of property, save time when preparing the tax return or support claims made on your return.  These records would include employer W-2s, 1099s, bank and brokerage statements, cancelled checks and credit card receipts.

Because of recent dynamics in the credit industry, there’s more than just a big inventory of houses on the market!  There’s an extraordinary inventory of professionals searching for careers that will support them in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed.  If it’s time for you to step into the career marketplace, get ready to compete.  You simply must assume that there are many excellent professionals vying for opportunities right along side of you.  These qualified and capable people’s resumes are in the stack on top and underneath yours.  What will make you prevail?

Are you aware of The Child Citizenship Act of 2001?  Many immigrants are unaware of this law and are not taking advantage of it.
On February 27, 2001, the Child Citizenship Act (CCA) became law and in that capacity grants automatic United States Citizenship to foreign born and adopted children of United States Citizens.  This is significant because prior to the CCA, the process of obtaining citizenship for such children was too lengthy and cumbersome exposing applicants to deportation from the United States.  Under the CCA, qualified children will automatically gain United States Citizenship on the day they immigrate to the United States.

Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) have been helping individuals save for retirement for more than 30 years?  They extend the tax advantages of employer-provided retirement plans to those who either don’t have a retirement plan at work or who want to supplement their other plans.  IRAs have changed in many ways, including restrictions on who can contribute, as well as the types of accounts you can contribute to.  You may not be familiar with all the options and benefits available to you.  To bring you up to speed, I’ll highlight three primary types of IRAs: Nondeductible, Deductible and Roth.

Making some strategic year-end tax planning before December 31 can save you considerable amount of money.  It’s not yet too late for those smart tax moves.  Here are a few:

Early one morning, you are out for a jog.  As you approach an intersection, you notice a “no-walk” red traffic signal against you.  There are no cars approaching on the horizon so you decide to keep jogging and enter the crosswalk against a “no-walk” red traffic light.

Network marketing is something that promises so much to so many (20,000 people join a network marketing business every week in America), yet seems to deliver so little (97 percent of those 20,000 fail) Why is that? Well, most of them have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

One of the most important estate tax planning tools available to married couples in the United States is the unlimited marital deduction, which allows one spouse to pass assets of any value to the other spouse without having to pay any Federal estate tax.  Married couples generally used the unlimited marital deduction to defer estate taxes until the death of the surviving spouse.  But what happens if the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen?

If you are a mutual fund investor, chances are you will receive a capital gain distribution notice in the next few weeks.  Distributions represent your share of gains the fund earned when it sold investments.  While gains are welcome, the taxes on them are not.  Since gains are a form of income, they’re taxable to you. The exception: Taxes on distributions from mutual funds you hold in a retirement plan won’t be due until you begin taking money out of those accounts.

Are you one of the lucky ones?  Among the thousands of poker players bit by the pop-culture bug and now causing casinos around the country to increase the number of active tables on their floors?  Then, I’m sorry to inform you, an unwanted player just sat down next to you: the Internal Revenue Service.  Starting next year, the IRS will require casinos and other sponsors of poker tournaments to report most winnings to the government.

Do you want to resolve your business or family law dispute quickly, inexpensively and privately?  Then avoid litigation at all costs.  Instead, consider the alternative of mediation.  Mediation is much less expensive than litigation.  It is a voluntary process where a neutral person, sensitive to the needs and concerns of both parties helps them to reach a mutually beneficial agreement to resolve the dispute.  The parties generally split the cost of a mediator.  The mediation sessions themselves are relatively short lasting from a half day, to a few days, depending upon the nature and complexity of the issues.

It’s that old philosophy that if we’re feeling desperate, we’ll do things that we will regret sooner or later.  How does that translate to career management and job search?  Let’s spend some time talking about the real estate industry as a current example. 

The Internet has made this world an open enterprise.  It has become important for companies to further expand their market and their consumer targets. Engaging in Internet marketing may be a risk for people who wish to be involved with this type of business.