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• Caliente

  Posted on 07/18/2017 in Taxes

  Summer is here, and in most of the country, it’s hot! The All-Star game has come and gone, dog days are right around the corner, and if your air conditioner makes a funny noise, the hair stands up on the back of your neck. Now, we can’t help you if your air conditioner breaks, but we can try and put a smile on your face with a few tax quotes to start your day. Try and spot the summer references hidden inside — they might not be quite as easy to find as you think! “A dog who thinks he is man’s best friend is a dog who has obviously never met a tax lawyer.” Fran Lebowitz “The United States will get a value added tax when conservatives realize that it is regressive, and liberals realize that it is a money machine.” Lawrence Summers “Baseball is a skilled game. It’s America’s game — it, and high taxes.” Will Rogers “Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors. If those taxes are excessive, they are reflected in idle factories, tax-sold farms and in hordes of hungry people, tramping the streets and seeking jobs in vain.” Franklin D. Roosevelt…

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• What’s My Company Worth?

  Posted on 07/13/2017 in Uncategorized

  In my previous post, I introduced the idea that a company has a report card called the financial statements.  There are three main financial statements – the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement.  In this post, I’ll explain what the balance sheet is.  The balance sheet gives us information about a company for a point in time.  This means that the balance sheet is only valid for the day that is on the balance sheet.  Here is an example of a balance sheet.  Balance Sheet   The balance sheet is divided into two sections: Assets Liabilities and Equity In order for the balance sheet to be correct it must balance.  this means that the Assets section must equal the Liabilities and Equity Section.  In our example, Total Assets = $26,000.  Total Liabilities and Equity = $26,000.  Total Assets = Total Liabilities and Equity.  The balance sheet balances. In the Assets section there are two – three sections. Current Assets Fixed Assets Other Assets The current assets are assets that can be easily turned into cash within the next twelve months.  Fixed assets are assets that have a will last more than twelve months.  A car for instance should…

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• Would You Like A Report Card For Your Business?

  Posted on 07/12/2017 in Accounting

  I was one of those individuals who actually enjoyed school.  I liked the structure of learning. There was an order to everything. There was time allotted for different subjects. I knew when I was going to be studying what. There was a way to measure my progress. Every day I would work at learning. Periodically there would be test that would gauge my mastery of the subject matter.  If I got a bad grade on a test, I knew that I had come up short.  This meant I would have to double down on my homework and make sure that I studied harder. At the end of each semester I would get a report card that would tell me whether I had done a good job in each of my classes.  Usually, there were not a lot of surprises when I got my report card.  I had been tracking my grades throughout the semester and I had a pretty good idea what the grade in each subject would be. When you’re running a business you also have a report card.  One of the purposes of a business is to earn profit for the owners of the business.  I would make…

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• Accountants Behaving Badly

  Posted on 07/11/2017 in Planning

  Actress Alyssa Milano first gained fame playing Tony Danza’s daughter on the television sitcom Who’s the Boss. The show ran for eight seasons, snagged ten Emmy and five Golden Globe nominations (winning one of each), and established Milano as a bone fide teen idol. While her star has dimmed since then, she continues to work in Hollywood and seems to be one of the few child stars in recent memory to grow into adulthood without well-publicized trips to rehab or jail. Today, Milano is as busy as a bumblebee. So she and her husband, agent David Bugliari, employed a business manager to handle “the details.” Usually those relationships proceed without trouble. But that’s not the case with Milano, who just sued her manager, CPA Kenneth Hellie, for $10 million. Milano says the relationship first soured with “a home improvement debacle.” She and her husband bought their Ventura County home in 2013 with plans to spend $1.1 million remodeling it. They wound up spending $5 million on the house which is now worth $3 million. (That odd math may not sound implausible to anyone else who’s done a gut rehab!) But Milano soon discovered that Hellie had made eight late mortgage…

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• IRS Slapshot Misses

  Posted on 07/05/2017 in Blog

  Summer is here, so naturally, everyone’s thinking about hockey. The Pittsburgh Penguins have just taken their second Stanley Cup in a row, and the rest of the NHL is working to make sure there’s no three-peat. But one of those teams just won a different sort of contest, in Tax Court of all places. So let’s go to the tape . . . Jeremy Jacobs is the owner and chairman of Delaware North, a concession company operating at places like stadiums, racetracks, and national parks. (Sounds like he’s as much to blame as anyone for the $14 beers you bought at your last ballgame.) He also owns the Boston Bruins, which finished 2017 with a 44-31-7 record in the league’s Eastern Conference. Forbes magazine pegs his net worth at just $4.4 billion, which means he’s barely a billionaire and still has to watch his pennies. The Bruins play half their games on the road. Those road trips can get expensive, especially when it comes to feeding everyone: “between 20 and 24 players, the head coach, assistant coaches, medical personnel, athletic trainers, equipment managers, communications personnel, travel logistics managers, public relations/media personnel, and other employees.” The team actually requires everyone to…

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• Should I Get a Big Tax Refund?

  Posted on 02/14/2014 in Blog, Videos

  It’s that time of year when people are working on their tax returns.  While it may be a lot of unwanted work to file the tax return, a lot of people get excited about filing their tax return because it means they get a big tax refund. My question for you is, “Should you get a big tax refund?”  If you do like getting a big tax refund, then it means you had too much taxes withheld from your paycheck throughout the year.  Not only that but you gave the government an interest free loan throughout the year. Here’s a simple example.  Let’s say that you get a $6,000 refund.  That’s a lot of money.  Now you can go on a vacation, pay off some debt, or buy something nice for your self.  If you get a $6,000 refund, that means that throughout the year you had $500 a month that was over-withheld from your paycheck each month. Let’s say you’re car needs to be replaced.  you can get a nice car for $500 a month.  Or let’s say your house is getting a bit small.  Just think if you added that $500 a month to your existing house payment. …

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• There’s Only One Way to Save Money

  Posted on 02/07/2014 in Blog

  Have you every looked at your bank account and said, “Boy, I wish I had more money?”  I know I have. I often tell my clients that there is only one way to save money.  Save Money.  It may sound a bit simplistic, but the only way to save money is to not spend it. I’m going to give you a sure fire way to save money.  I’ve been doing this for a number of years now and it works wonderfully.  I came up with this idea by reading the best book on financial management The Richest Man in Babylon.  In that book it says to save 10% of everything you earn. Here is how I implemented this idea.  Whenever I make a deposit into the bank account I transfer 10% over to my savings account.  It works beautifully.  Over time, my business has grown and the volume of customer deposits I’ve received has increased.  I found that it became cumbersome to do a 10% savings transfer for every customer deposit I receive.  So I decided to change my discipline.  Now instead of doing a savings transfer with each customer deposit, at the end of the month I look at…

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• Introduction to the Balance Sheet

  Posted on 01/31/2014 in Blog

  The balance sheet provides us with a financial snapshot of our business for a certain point in time.  It tells us what our assets are, what our liabilities are, and what our equity (net worth of company) is.  The balance sheet is only valid for one point in time.  For example if the balance sheet is date September 30, 2012, the balance sheet would only be valid for September 30.  It would not be valid for September 29 or October 1.  It is only valid for September 30. Why is it called a Balance Sheet.  Because it balances.  If it didn’t balance, it would not be called a Balance Sheet. One of the fundamentals of accounting is the Accounting Equation: Assets = Liabilities and Equity. When we look at a Balance Sheet, the assets will always equal the liabilities and equity section. The balance sheet has two major sections the Assets section and the Liabilities and Equity Section. In the Assets section, you have three main categories:  Current Assets, Fixed Assets, and Other Assets.  Current assets are assets that a company will convert to cash or use in operations within one year.  Examples of this are cash, marketable securities, and…

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• Take A Real Business Trip

  Posted on 01/24/2014 in Blog

  I just finished up having my first Chariots of Fire moment.  I love to run.  I’ve finished 7 marathons.  Chariots of Fire is one of my favorite movies.   I just recreated the opening scene where they are all running on the beach and the waves are lapping on their feet. Best part of this was I did it on the beautiful Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman.  It was an exhilarating experience. I just finished up the Cayman Business Academy with Chuck Bauer.  The best part of the whole experience was that it was at a business conference and thus a business expense. I love attending business conference.  I get to learn information that helps me transform my business.  I still remember The third business conference that I attended cost me $2,000 to attend including travel. As a result attending that conference I got an idea that I immediately implemented.  Within in 4 months I had made $3,000 from just one of the ideas I learned.  That is what we call a positive return on investment.  I’d like to see someone do that on Wall Street.  Best part is I am still making money from that one idea.  I have…

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• Why is My Business not Growing?

  Posted on 01/22/2014 in Blog

  Why is my business not growing? The simple answer, the only answer is because you don’t want it to grow. One of the most gratifying things I see in my line is work is a business owner who starts their business from scratch and grows the business to earn finances to achieve their goals and dreams.  It is one on the most beautiful things about America that we have the opportunity to build a life that we want. One of my first clients started her business in January and by December they had revenues of ~$950,000.  She built a million dollar business in the space of a year.  What makes this even more remarkable is that she accomplished this in 2008 at the beginning of the Great Recession. It was truly inspiring to see and has inspired me ever since. What the difference between a business with exceptional growth and a business that just peters along. The difference is the business owner that grows is focused on growth.  Growth is the number on priority.  They make sure that they are doing the activities that generate growth.  They are hustling daily to present their product and services to their ideal customer….

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