Returning Value Blog

It is almost 2018 … do you know where your business plan for the new year is?

Developing a business plan for the upcoming year is a laborious task, but it is often critical to the continued success of the operation. Although the details will vary from company to company, the best approach is to confront the challenges expected for the year and address the strengths and weaknesses within the organization. Conversely, if a business has a merely rudimentary plan—or even worse, no plan at all—the likelihood of real progress is diminished.

Do you plan to relocate or expand your business in 2018?

To put the early phase of building a startup business into context, consider dating. You remember that, right? Daters find each other through different avenues, get together, gauge their respective interest in one another, and then pursue a relationship or go their separate ways.

Practical ideas to spur business growth

When you are running a small business, the numbers matter. This is especially true when it comes to cash flow. If you have more money going out than you have coming in, your business will not survive for very long.

In today’s rough-and-tumble world of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), buyers need to get to know business sellers and their executives, test their representations about asset condition and financial performance, and screen for common fraud schemes. Here’s why.

On October 12, an executive order was signed that, among other things, seeks to expand Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). HRAs are just one type of tax-advantaged account you can provide your employees to help fund their health care expenses. Also available are Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs). Which one should you include in your benefits package? Here’s a look at the similarities and differences:

Business owners may not be able to set aside as much as they’d like in tax-advantaged retirement plans. Typically, they’re older and more highly compensated than their employees, but restrictions on contributions to 401(k) and profit-sharing plans can hamper retirement-planning efforts. One solution may be a cash balance plan.

If you own a profitable, unincorporated business with your spouse, you probably find the high self-employment (SE) tax bills burdensome. An unincorporated business in which both spouses are active is typically treated by the IRS as a partnership owned 50/50 by the spouses. (For simplicity, when we refer to “partnerships,” we’ll include in our definition limited liability companies that are treated as partnerships for federal tax purposes.)

If you acquire a company, your to-do list will be long, which means you can’t devote all of your time to the deal’s potential tax implications. However, if you neglect tax issues during the negotiation process, the negative consequences can be serious. To improve the odds of a successful acquisition, it’s important to devote resources to tax planning before your deal closes.

If your business offers health insurance benefits to employees, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a climb in premium costs in recent years — perhaps a dramatic one. To meet the challenge of rising costs, some employers are opting for a creative alternative to traditional health insurance known as “captive insurance.” A captive insurance company generally is wholly owned and controlled by the employer. So it’s essentially like forming your own insurance company. And it provides tax advantages, too.