Are Your Customers Ruining Your Business?

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of Max Pixel

When it comes to owning a business, most owners and managers are looking to find one thing above all else: More customers.  More customers mean more revenue. That’s got to be good if you hope to build your business, right?  Not necessarily so, as you’ll find out shortly.  Just as with many things in life, quantity doesn’t always trump quality.  In fact, too many clients can be a death knell for a business if you aren’t careful.  Don’t believe it?  Read on and learn.

So, You Want to Sell Your Business

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

One of the reasons to own a business is to eventually sell it.  Whether the motivation to sell is to retire or simply to start another business is immaterial.  The most salient thing you need to consider if you hope to consummate a sale is to make the sale appealing to the buyer.  To accomplish that, you need to understand the process involved, the mistakes to be avoided and the time it takes to create a sellable business.

New Rules Benefit Contractors and Retailers

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Calling all small contractors!  

Image courtesy of flickr

I have good news for contractors concerning long term construction contracts.  The 2017 Tax Act can save you money and reduce your accounting hassles. As long as your business does less than $25 million in gross receipts and the contract duration is over a year in length, you will be able to use cash accounting as opposed to the percentage of completion method you are currently forced to embrace.  In the past, long term construction contracts had to be reported using the percentage of completion method.  This method was very cumbersome to employ, since it required the contractor to even out the reporting of income over the life of the contract, regardless of the income collected. To use this method, all contractors were required to keep detailed accounting records of each period during the contract.

Sales Tax Shuffle

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

Ben Franklin said it best when he coined the phrase, "In this world nothing can said to be certain, except death and taxes."  But as all business owners know, while death calls but once, there are many different kinds of taxes they are expected to pay at different times of the year. While income taxes are paid but once a year, business owners are required to frequently pay sales tax on many of the things they sell, as well as a number of things they buy.  The second kind of sales tax is referred to as Use Tax.

Can Professionals Capitalize on the Same 20% Deduction as Other Businesses?

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of Pixabay

In my previous blog, Do the Right Thing & Save 20%, I covered the new tax laws in effect that allow many businesses to capitalize on deductions that apply to overflow income (business income minus your salary). The only rub is this deduction specifically excludes professionals. That’s the bad news. The good news is in today’s blog I will reveal how realtors, accountants, doctors, dentists, CPAs, engineers and any other business owners that provide a service may still have an opportunity to capitalize on this 20% deduction.