business

For once, the last minute add-ons into a Bill made sense! Or at least they did if you are a small business owner.

The AMT band-aid was extended for another year. I was just starting to gear up some AMT education through TaxLoopholes. If the band-aid had not been extended another 25 million taxpayers would have become subject to this tax. I’m glad the patch was extended through 12-31-08 (for 2008 tax year) but I do hope that they once and for all tackle the AMT issue.

Well, it’s back to school and back to work time. And for many of us that means that it’s time to start cleaning out all the receipts we have stuck all over the car, purse, wallet, pockets, whatever handy spot you have.

In a perfect world, you will always pay for business expenses with a business check or a business credit card. And you’ll always for your personal expenses with a personal check, cash or a personal credit card. Most of us, though, get caught sometimes seeing something we need and not having the right card with us. And, yes, I’m a CPA, you’d think I would know better.

The past few weeks have shown what happens when unbridled greed, a capitalistic economy and uncertain government regulations collide. The ripples will likely be felt for decades. If you have a small business, you might have already seen changes.

There are two times of stress for a business owner: not enough money and too much money. It reveals the true character of the people behind business. Unfortunately, the picture isn’t always pretty.

A recent article of Inc magazine listed the top 100 companies. A significant number of them began in the first few months after 9/11. In the chaos that followed 9/11, heroes were needed. In this case, though, the heroes were business heroes. People who saw that it wasn’t the end of civilization, who knew that the sun would come up tomorrow and that in the economic turmoil, there was real opportunity.

Ever so often I send an email that resounds with a number of people. The one I sent a week ago, 9/3/08, was one like that. Here it is again. Thank you all for your kind comments.

The past year and a half has been the most challenging I’ve ever faced since I’ve been in business. And last week, in the worst storm in Phoenix’s history, a tree went through our roof. It was a bad enough storm that I looked under the trunk the next morning for little witch’s feet, but apparently it wasn’t that bad. (That was a Wizard of Oz reference, by the way.)

On Friday, my husband and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. Like every other couple out there, we’ve had our share of wins and losses. As we sat around the table talking about it the other day, the one thing that kept coming up was “Where did the time go?” Then I started talking to my CPA about this year’s tax return … and found myself thinking the same thing!

Have you ever wondered what kind of a house a man like Warren Buffett lives in? Friday morning, I found out, and it gave me some serious food for thought on the final leg of our road trip back to Reno.

There are good ways to start a business, and there are some not-so-good ways to start a business. The more you know, the better chance you have to make a good start.

In this new Online Workshop, I’m talking about 3 important steps you must take to start your business off on the right foot!

Finally! I get to make an announcement I’ve been waiting for weeks to make. I have formed a partnership with Bill Bourbonnais for a new tax services company, Diane Kennedy’s Tax Services. Every single employee will be personally trained by me, so you know you’ll get the latest in cutting edge tax strategies. Not only that, you never have to worry about how much we’re going to charge you. You’ll have unlimited access to accountants and we even include th preparation of two returns for the first 50 people who sign up as our new clients. There are actually 3 different tax packages.

Fifteen months ago, TaxLoopholes did some massive changes in order to “go green.” We went largely virtual. In our case, though, it was really two-fold. (1) We turned the bulk of products into electronic format and (2) We closed down our main office and everybody pretty much works from home.

There were a number of reasons why we did this: more efficiency, lower costs, happier employees, and mainly it just felt right.