Author: admin-hsc

It’s that time of the year… time to pack up and head out for your summer vacation. However, if you’re like many owners of closely held businesses, this is sometimes easier said than done. If important things seem to grind to a halt when you’re out of the office, it may be time to consider developing processes in your organization that aren’t dependent on your being around. In other words, get the business out of your head and on paper in the form of policies and procedures that your trusted employees can administer. Continue reading “Improved Collections Lead to Improved Vacations” →

If you are like many owners of closely held businesses, you likely own life insurance policies to fund cross-purchase provisions in a buy-sell agreement. Or, perhaps you have obtained key-man life insurance to provide funds in the event of the death of a key employee. Continue reading “Avoid Trap of Taxable Life Insurance Proceeds on Key-Man Policies” →

Are your income tax returns finished yet?

Did you check out line 45 on the second page of your 1040? That’s where you look to see if you had to pay an extra amount of tax called the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

Usually, when people see they’ve been required to add this mysterious little item onto their already high-enough income taxes, they are pretty perplexed. They feel like they’re being punished and they’re often not sure why.

So what is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) anyway? It is a completely separate system of income taxes that exists in addition to the regular tax system. To find out whether it is owed, taxpayers have to calculate their regular taxes under the usual set of rules, and then calculate their AMT by using a different set of rules. Continue reading “Alternative Minimum Tax a Mess for Taxpayers, Accountants” →

Nonpublic companies receiving an annual financial statement audit may be seeing significant changes in the performance of their financial statement audits this year. To increase the effectiveness of financial statement audits, the American Institute of CPAs – the body that establishes standards for audits of nonpublic entities – issued a new suite of risk based auditing standards which will be effective for most December 31, 2007 audits. The new standards call for more of a “rifle” approach where the auditor identifies specific audit targets and acts as a financial statement sniper of sorts. Continue reading “New Auditing Standards to Impact Private Companies” →

How many times have you said something like this: “If I had a nickel for every time you . . .”? Well, if you were only out a nickel for every time one of your employees stole from you, it would probably not break you. Unfortunately, the cruel reality is that each time someone steals from your business, it will cost you much more than that. Continue reading “Occupational Fraud – “If I Had a Nickel . . .”” →