7 Easy Steps To A Home Business!
July 3rd, 2008 by 10 Best Home Based Business Subscribe To Our Feed
Follow these 7 very important steps to establish a successful home based business.
7 Easy Steps To A Home Based Business by BB Lee (C)2003
According to the Small Business Administration nearly 20 percent of Americans are working out of the home at least on a part time basis.
The SBA forecast that the number of home based business owners will continue to expand rapidly in the next decade. Why? People hit by the recent downsizing of their companies are searching for alternate ways to supplement their earnings.
Are you ready to take the plunge and start your own work at home enterprise? It’s rare to find a hard working individual who hasn’t dreamed of quitting his 9 to 5 and striking out on his own.
But there are a few caveats the average person should take into due consideration.
Although many home business owners have experienced success, working solo is not for everyone. It can be a hard road with almost no rewards in the beginning. This translates to zero profits. It may take one to two years, or even longer, before they earn profits. Discouraging to say the least. The prime reason why many home business ventures fail in the first few years.
Well if you are still determined to forge ahead and start a home based venture…take a look at the following important steps.
1. Select Your Business. Select a business you are sure you can do well in and that people are actually willing to pay you money for.
2. Start Planning. -What will you charge. -Who are your customers. -How will you reach your customers. -How will you market your business. -What’s your unique selling point. -When will you open for business. -Where will you set up your office.
3. Legal Issues. -Check local zoning laws. -Decide the legal form of your business.(sole, partnership, corporation) -Get a business license. -Register your new business name. -Find out if you need special type of licensing for your business.
4. Financing. -Set up a bookkeeping system. -Open a business account at your bank. -Decide if you need liability insurance. -Plan how much you will invest to cover startup expenses.
5. Home Office. -Use a corner of your bedroom, a basement, attic, even a completely furnished private office-if you have the space.
6. Marketing. -Establish your business name. -Get business cards. -Get professional quality letterhead. -Get the best stationery you can afford. -Print flyers announcing your new business. -Print brochures. -Set up a one page website announcing your business.
7. Get To Work! Set up a work schedule and stick to it. If you decide to work after the children are in school. And quit before they arrive home in the afternoon. (9 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon)
Stick to it!
Strive to work at least 10 hours per week. More if you have the time, energy, and drive to succeed.
———————————————————— BB Lee is Editor And Publisher of SmallBizBits Newsletter! If you like this article subscribe to SmallBizBits Now! For new articles, advice, tips, unique start-up ideas, ebooks, reports. Visit: http://www.angelfire.com/zine/smallbiz
————————————————————
About the Author
BB Lee is Editor/Writer of SmallBizBits, A popular Homebusiness Newsletter. You can reach BB or subscribe at smallbiz@angelfire.com. http://www.angelfire.com/zine/smallbiz BB is a professional writer and has been published in several print magazines and numerous online ezines.
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
Saving Taxes with Your Home-based Business
July 2nd, 2008 by 10 Best Home Based Business Subscribe To Our Feed
HOW TO KEEP $5000 IN TAXES THIS YEAR
Today we will review some ways of saving taxes through your business. The information contained in this report comes from the IRS tax code (you will recognize some of it if you took advantage of your free bonus of the Special Report and audiocassette (www.homebizkeys.com/page14.html)). However, we are not accountants or tax attorneys, but business owners dedicated to helping people just like you take advantage of these great deductions!
If you’re like most people you are just taking the standard three deductions: 1) Deduction of home mortgage interest 2) Deduction for spouse and 3) Deduction for children. If you fall in this category you are among the most heavily taxed group in America!
Did you know that there are over 150 tax deductions available for small and home-based business owners? Contrary to popular belief our nation’s economic growth doesn’t come from the Wal-marts and Microsofts, but from small and home-based businesses. Because of this Congress has manadated some very generous tax deductions to help encourage this growth. All that is asked in return for these deductions is proper documentation. You don’t even need to be making a profit to claim these! You simply need to be in “pursuit” of profit.
Of the more than 150 availabe deductions, the following six offer you the greatest value for your effort, and can result in $5000 or more in cash savings this year!
1) CAPITAL EQUIPMENT
All business owners need equipment to run a business. You can write-off up to $24,000 in deductions on purchases of office furniture, office equipment (including computers, printers, telephones, etc.) and automobiles (qualifying vans, pickups and SUV’s) in the year of purchase. This applies whether the item was paid for in full or financed. (IRS CODE, SEC. 179, 2001)
2) MEDICAL EXPENSES
Small and home business owners can deduct 100% OF ALL MEDICAL EXPENSES. That includes medical insurance premiums (even if they are for insurance provided by your 9-5 job!), office visits, co-pays, pharmaceuticals, dental and much more! Many business owners write-off more than $2000 a year this way! (IRS CODE, SEC. 105, 2001)
3) HIRING CHILDREN
Up to $7,000 ($4,700 in wages + $3,000 IRA) per child, per year can be paid to children over the age of 7 who help out with the family business. This can include cleaning the office, filing, cleaning the company car, and much more! If your child is under 18 there will be no Social Security or income tax due on this money, and it is a full deduction to the business! The $4,700 per year can then be used to purchase school clothes, pay for college, weddings and much more! You will end up spending money on these things anyway for your children, so why not get them tax-free? (IRS CODE SEC 63(c), 162(a)(1), PUB. 15-SEC. 3, 2002)
4) HOME OFFICE
A home business owner will need an office at home. A home business owner can write off any room or portion of any room that is used for business. The average amount claimed for this deduction is $2400 per year! (IRS CODE, SEC. 280A, 2001)
5) VACATIONS/BUSINESS TRIPS
It’s easy to combine business with pleasure on your next trip in order to deduct part of the travel costs. Of course, proper documentation and qualification is needed, but doing so can save you hundreds of dollars! (IRS CODE, SEC. 162(a)(2), Reg. 1.162.2, 2001)
6) BUSINESS MILEAGE
You can deduct 36.5 cents for every business mile you travel and document. If you perform tasks for your home business while going to and from your day job even some of your commuting mileage becomes deductible! (Tres. Reg. 1.162-1(a), 2001)
There you have it! Those 6 deductions are all based on current expenses, so why not take advantage of them?
Home Business Keys has partnered with My Tax Man to offer you a product that will help you take advantage of all of these deductions and more! My Tax Man is in business strictly to help small and home based business owners save on taxes. To learn more about My Tax Man and the Tax Toolbox go to the link at the end of today’s course.
ACTION STEPS
1) Visit My Tax Man to see how you can get the maximum tax benefits from your Home Based Business.
LINKS:
To visit My Tax Man to learn about the Tax Toolbox go to:
http://www.taxtoolbox.com/index.html
To order a tax deductible Tax Toolbox go to:
http://www.homebizkeys.com/page27.html
Article content written by Ryan H. Law, co-founder and President of Home Business Keys - offering you the complete online business package.
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
EK Success Blushing Bride Title Sticker (EKWJT017)
July 2nd, 2008 by 10 Best Home Based Business Subscribe To Our Feed
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
If You Don’t Have a Home-Based Business, Start One Today!
June 28th, 2008 by 10 Best Home Based Business Subscribe To Our Feed
This may be a decade of tremendous corporate profits and economic growth, but for the vast majority of North Americans, the 90’s have been a dismal, uphill climb. And many economists believe that this next, new millennium won’t be getting better any time soon.
Why?
Changing business and government attitudes are the reason. There has seemingly been more anti-business legislation in the last decade than in any other this century. Stronger employment and labor laws, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Comprehensive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA, which includes mandating health insurance for workers for a period of time after they leave employment), safety laws, much tougher laws for discharging workers, more liabilities for lawsuits, Family Leave Act, Americans with Disabilities Act (which is creating immense numbers of lawsuits), along with higher minimum wages and fringe benefits.
Just reading this list is exhausting.
While these acts have beneficial and protective aspects, they have also encouraged businesses to move their facilities. That “sucking sound” popularized by Ross Perot is not just down to Mexico, but elsewhere as well. The result has been a dramatic loss of heavy industry in the U.S.
The young and the middle-aged alike are realizing that their dream of “having a job with a company forever” is an illusion. Companies have been downsizing, rightsizing, and capsizing for some time now, and they continue to do so - more now than ever before. Even the federal and state governments are getting into the act with layoffs and attrition of jobs.
In addition to all this uncertainty and mutual lack of loyalty between companies and employees, even the workers who do not keep their jobs have no guarantee of promotions due to the shrinking number of management positions. These circumstances aggravate the already tryingly long commutes in rush hour traffic and increasingly typical frustrated boss-spelled backwards, that double S-O-B.
Finally, if all this isn’t bad enough, under recent tax laws employees are shafted more than ever with limits and thresholds for their employee deductions and higher social security tax limits. This results in more couples working than ever before and, on many occasions, working more than one job. It is now almost impossible to have only one job in the family and make ends meet! Today, many households need three incomes just to survive.
Sadly, even having more than one job does not produce any major positive effect on most people’s bank accounts. Why? Because of tax laws. This was well illustrated in 1994 by Jane Bryant Quinn in her Woman’s Day article on “How to Live on One Salary.”
Where The Money Goes
Ms. Quinn’s example assumed that a man was earning $40,000 per year. His wife (we will call her Lori) wasn’t working. They had more month than money. (Sound familiar?) Lori subsequently got an administrative job for $15,000 per year. You would think this would improve the family’s financial situation, but when Ms. Quinn examined the economics of getting this extra income, the results were startling!
Lori had to pay federal and state taxes on her new income. Since they filed jointly, the family’s combined income was what established their tax bracket. She paid $4,500 in new taxes, most of which was non-deductible, for federal and state income tax.
Lori had social security withheld from her paycheck at the rate of 7.65 percent, which amounted to an additional nondeductible amount of $1,148 being extracted from her salary. She also had to commute to work 10 miles a day round trip, which is probably conservative for most people. This resulted (in 1995) in nondeductible commuting costs of $696.
Lori also had some child care expenses, which give a partial tax credit. Ms. Quinn figured that the amount spent over and beyond the tax credit was $4,250 per year.
Lori also ate out each day with colleagues, spending an average of $5 per day, five days a week. This results in a nondeductible expense of $1,250 per year. (I would love to know where she ate fore only $5!)
Now that Lori has a job, she has to have professional clothing, this means a hefty dry cleaning bill. Ms. Quinn assumed that Lori’s increased expenses here amounted to an extra $1,000 per year, nondeductible, of course.
Finally, with both spouses working, Lori wasn’t in the mood to cook dinner every night. They bought more convenience foods and ate out more frequently. This resulted in increased food costs of a nondeductible $1,000 per year in minimum.
Add it all up and Lori’s take home pay was a paltry $1,156 a year, for which she had to put up with a daily commute, an unpleasant boss, and corporate hassles. (See the following summary of all of these numbers, so you can do the math for yourself.)
No wonder more and more people are starting home-based businesses. In fact, there are currently an estimated 30 million people working from their homes. This number is expected to more than triple, to 97 million, by the year 2000, and to keep on growing. This has become and will continue to be one of the greatest mass movements in the U.S.
Why a Home-Based Business Makes So Much “Cents”
There are many reasons why so many people are favoring home-based over traditional business.
There is no commute (unless you have a really big home), no boss, little if any chance of lawsuits, must lower overhead, no employees, (or few), and far fewer government restrictions. In fact, many of the laws previously cited don’t apply to small firms with few or no employees. It is for these reasons, according to Entrepreneur magazine, that 95 percent of home-based businesses succeed in their first year and achieve an average income of $50,250 per year with many earning much more.
There are really two sets of tax laws in this country. One is for employees, and it allows deductions for individual retirement accounts, 401(k)s (if you have one set up by your company), interest and property taxes on your home (which some in Congress want to do away with ), and charity. Then there are the laws for home-based business people who conduct their business either full-time or part-time. They can deduct, with proper documentation ,their house, their spouse, and even children (by hiring them), their business vacations, their cars, and their food with colleagues. They can also set up a pension plan that makes any government plan seem paltry by comparison.
For Lori - and for you - the meaning of all this is simple:
Lori earned $15,000 in salary as an employee, but took home only $1,156. She could have netted the entire $15,000 had she earned it in a home-based business!
This is an increase of almost 13 times her take-home pay as an employee.
Notice that Lori is not spending dramatically more money than she is currently spending. She would eat out anyway, go on trips and drive her car the same as before. By having a home-based business, however, many of their expenses become deductible. This concept is known as “redirecting expenses.” With a home-based business, she can now deduct some of the expenses that she is incurring anyway.
Renegade Strategy: If you don’t have a home-based business, start one!
In addition to all the benefits mentioned above, Congress will subsidize you while you are growing your home-based business. If your home-based business produces a tax loss in the first year or so, you can use that tax loss against any other income you have. It can be used against wages earned as an employee, dividends, pensions, or interest income-or you can use the loss against your spouse’s earnings if you file a joint return.
If the tax loss exceeds all your income for this year, no problem. You can carry back the loss two years and get a refund from the IRS for up to the last two years of income taxes paid, or you can carry over the loss twenty years. You read it right: You can offset up to 20 years of income!
Here’s an example:
Mike earns $50,000 in a job with the government. If he starts a home-based business that generates a tax loss of 10,000, he only pays tax on $40,000.
Renegade Tip:
You can never lose a properly documented business deduction.
In fact, if everyone in the U.S., who is employed full-time began a home-based business, used the strategies I suggest, each household could easily save between $2000 and $10,000 in taxes each year. If all employees in the U.S. did this, the tax bite of the IRS would be reduced by a whopping estimated 300 billion dollars annually. Of course, Congress would have to change the laws for this to occur.
Renegade Strategy:
Get LUCK - Labor Under Correct Knowledge.
Can You Succeed In a Home-Based Business?
Research has constantly shown that it rarely the business that determines success or failure. It is usually the business owner. Why does one person succeed and another fail at the same business?
Two words - Knowledge and Action.
Some people want the benefits of having their own business, but they don’t take action. The result is business failure.
Then there are the people who are always working. The take action but still fail. The reason is that they are not taking the correct actions, the knowledgeable actions, that will bring the desired results. Again, business failure.
It’s like drilling for oil. If you set up a drilling rig in your back yard, it is going to fail at producing oil unless your back yard is in Texas or Alaska. The same rig in a good field will produce a gusher, because it was placed where oil was known to exist.
The point is that most people who get excited about starting their own home-based business do so without all the necessary knowledge. Consequently, many people quit before they acquire, through experience, the knowledge they need, without realizing that they are getting substantial tax breaks. This leads to another strategy….
Renegade Strategy: Learn to duplicate the success of others.
Duplicating the strategy of others is much quicker and more effective than going to the school of hard knocks.
It is also known as modeling, which is well-illustrated by the way The McDonalds Corporation blazed a trail to success that many have since followed.
In the early 1950’s McDonald’s and other start-up companies discovered that they could grow many times faster than the conventional firms through franchising. Instead of the company investing millions of dollars to build new stores, they let independent franchise do it for them.
It seemed like a great idea, but at first no one figured out how to make it succeed on a consistent basis; therefore, the media attacked relentlessly and continually. News articles featured destitute families who had lost their life savings through franchising schemes. Virtually every state attorney general in the U.S. condemned the new marketing method. Some congressmen even tried to outlaw franchising entirely.
Over the years, however, Ray Kroc and his management team at McDonald’s developed a turnkey franchise business team at McDonald’s franchise. The newfound success-from the system-turned public perception of franchising around. Today, virtually every franchise business models-to some extent-the franchise business system created by McDonald’s, making franchising one of the most respected ways of doing business in the world.
Modeling is simply learning what other successful people have done to achieve success in a specific area, and then doing the same thing. Someone said that “education is the shortcut to experience.” With modeling, you literally leverage your own learning with the collective years of learning through experience of many others. Modeling the success of others saves both time and money and reduces frustration and stress.
The light at the end of the tunnel, for you and millions of others today, is the financial opportunity that starting your own business offers. If you have one going already, then make sure you are enjoying the many financial advantages to which your smart choice entitles you. The tax advantage alone can make a home-based business the single best financial move you could ever make.
Sandy’s website is located at. http://www.taxreductioninstitute.com Would you like to get started in your own home based business to realize all of the lucrative tax benefits?
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
Kidde Smoke Alarm, Hardwire with Battery Backup and Alarm Memory #i12040
June 26th, 2008 by 10 Best Home Based Business Subscribe To Our Feed
- Hush Feature Temporarily silences nuisance alarms - Battery Backup (9V battery included) Provides continuous protection even during power outages - Tamper Resist Locking Pin Helps deter from theft or tampering - Test/Reset Button Tests smoke alarm circuitry and horn and resets alarm memory - Red LED Flashes every 30-40 seconds to indicate that the smoke alarm is operating properly - Green LED Indicates AC power is present - Battery Pull Tab Eliminates battery installation time and keeps battery fresh - Quick Connect Power Harness Makes installation fast and easy - Ionization Sensor Protects best on fast flaming fires - Interconnectable Interconnect up to 24 Kidde devices (of which 18 can be initiating) on one wiring network
Customer Review: No Customer Support
I purchased three of these for a basement addition. They would not work with my older Kidde detectors and the customer support did not respond to several inquiries. I purchased another brand and replaced every detector in my house. I cannot recommend Kidde products because of this lack of support.
Customer Review: So far So good
Kidde Smoke Alarm, Hardwire with Battery Backup and Alarm Memory #i12040
Other brands had false alarms but not with this one.
Install went well and all units tested good.
Click to Buy Now!
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
Kindergarten Success Starter Ages 4-6
June 20th, 2008 by 10 Best Home Based Business Subscribe To Our Feed
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
