Business News

Do we try to manage our technology ourselves or bring in experts to provide the needed technology advice?  Technology companies differ significantly.  Some have experience and the mindset to effectively manage your network, servers and PC’s while others have the experience and ability to help you decide the best course for your business and how to use technology effectively and efficiently to advance and grow your business. 

If you’ve opened a newspaper or watched the news in the past month or so, you’ve seen a lot of news about sub-prime mortgages and what is happening with both the lenders that give them and the buyers that have used them to purchase homes.  These sub-prime loans have been called risky and basically unacceptable.

Last month we discussed the growing problem of identity theft and the importance of protecting your personally identifiable information, or PII.  Underscoring this, McAfee recently announced that since Feb. 2006, more than 100 million people have had their personal information stolen or wrongfully exposed. 

The average home shopper knows very little about the whole credit scoring process.  There are ways to improve credit scores and obtain a loan for the home you really want.Begin by reviewing your credit report.  Consumers may now receive one free credit report annually.  Go to...

The IRS caught a big fish.  The federal tax-collecting agency settled a dispute with drug-maker Merck & Co. and its subsidiaries.  The bottom line is Merck will pay $2.3 billion in federal taxes, net interest and penalties to resolve a dispute regarding tax years 1993 to 2001.

What is SEO?  Well, Search Engine Optimization, of course.  SEO is basically the art and science of optimizing your website to get the best possible listing in search engine results.  Now, this isn’t something most business owners would know much about let alone be educated in, so it’s time to call in the experts.

It’s very possible that the approximate $8 million dollars spent by the City of Santa Clarita over the past eight years in an effort to fight the installation of a massive gravel mine in Soledad Canyon may have been money well-spent given the recent truce declared between the City of Santa Clarita and Cemex, a gravel mining giant.  Only time will tell.

City Manager Ken Pulskamp was awarded the League of California Cities prestigious Diversity Award last week at the annual City Manager’s Conference in San Francisco last month. The Diversity Award recognizes individuals who are instrumental in encouraging diversity in the workplace and in their communities.  Pulskamp was honored for his work in several areas including:  efforts with the Sister City Program in Santa Clarita, the Human Relations Forum, work place practices and programs and the City’s Newhall Community Center.

Later this month, Microsoft will be releasing its newest Operating System for sale to consumers and small-to-medium business customers.  Large Business customers had access to Vista the end of November 2006.  If you run any custom or special software or if you use any older hardware on your computer, do not rush out to upgrade to the new OS without spending time to test to ensure that your current software and hardware are compatible with Vista.

Nearly half the shoppers recently surveyed by Deloitte and Touche reported they bought goods and services online. Just as significant: Nine out of 10 shoppers said they had done their price-comparison shopping online before making purchases at physical stores.
This underscores the value of a website to any retail business. Still, 60 percent of American businesses are not yet online, according to figures issued by Microsoft in November 2006.

California state law allows debtors to protect certain assets from the reach of creditors.  These laws have their origins in England.  The first English exemption law protected only the debtor’s clothes, bedding and tools of the trade.  Today, debtors can protect much more by applying the proper state exemption laws.

What a great question!  Many things come to mind.  To my surprise it wasn’t any of those things!  I’ve been managing other people’s money for over three decades and my greatest asset wasn’t my wealth of knowledge or vast array of achievements, in fact, it was my inherent ability to handle trust!
To be a trusted advisor!  I thought about the many teachers, mentors and loved ones that were my trusted advisors never thinking that I would be one myself, one day.

“The Internal Revenue Service collected $48.7 billion in enforcement revenue — the highest amount in 10 years.  If you’re dodging the tax man, you won’t be safe much longer.” Fiscal year 2006 resulted in record-breaking numbers for the Internal Revenue Service.

There has been a trend of jumping into things and working very hard on projects, but possibly not obtaining a high level of results.  Sometimes people obtain very little results. There are many reasons for this.  One of the reasons is inadequate planning and preparation.  On the other hand, we are aware of people who have put as much as 18 months to three years into the planning, preparation and tasting of various projects.  These include business startups as well as projects and also improvements within a business.

On December 21, 2001, former President Bill Clinton signed the temporary reinstatement of Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act into law.  The text of § 245(i) says essentially that aliens who entered the US illegally or those who have become illegal in the US due to the overstaying of their visas or similar circumstances can now legalize themselves in the US by paying a one-time penalty fee of $ 1,000.  This is in addition to proving their eligibility for legal permanent residence or other immigration benefit.

Then are you ready to really do what it takes?  I hate to potentially burst a bubble but this process is almost always more complicated than posting on an Internet site or two.  You probably stand a less than four percent chance that you will find your next employer on an Internet listing.  The process is much more likely to involve a systematic project attack to find and build relationships with appropriate decision-makers in key roles in the business community.  The more you treat this like a project, the more seamless your transition will be.

Joint and several liability is important in personal injury actions and was created to protect the injured.  Two elements need to exist for joint and several liability to apply: (1) negligent cause of action, and (2) two or more defendants.  Under joint and several liability, each defendant is jointly responsible for all economic damages awarded in favor of the plaintiff, regardless of the percentage of fault found against any particular defendant.  What does this mean and why is it important?

Small business owners know that every penny counts.  Like the good farmer, you want to know that at the end of the season, you have reaped a good harvest.  How do you know if switching to an S corporation status will yield significant benefits at the end of the tax year?
Think about this: You can be “double taxed” if you are now operating as a C corporation.  Your profits, like the good harvest, can shrink since those profits are taxed to the corporation and taxed again to the shareholders when paid out as dividends.