Protect Your Property from Judgments and Liens
Your real estate is one of your riskiest investments – not just with the volatility of returns in recent years, but because of exposure to liability. Your property can easily be encumbered, hindering or preventing you from exercising your full rights to do what you want with it. To remove the encumbrance, you might have…
Is Your Bank About More than the Numbers?
When choosing a bank, many business owners neglect to evaluate one of the most important functions a financial institution can offer: a longstanding and supportive commercial lending relationship. Too often the choice of checking accounts and other services is the primary focus, and the issue of accessing a loan doesn’t arise until money is needed….
Ten Pitfalls Valuations Experts Should Avoid
Experts testifying about valuation opinions can make or break a case. To avoid unpleasant surprises, be sure your valuations expert avoids this list of 10 common pitfalls: 1. Lack of preparation This is basic, but it’s true. The more you know your analysis, the better things will go. That’s not the pitfall. The pitfall is…
How to Avoid Mission Creep
The first step in organizing a nonprofit is identifying the mission. Keeping an organization true to that mission is one of the most challenging, important tasks management faces. Mission – the charitable purpose identified as the core function of an organization informs and influences every action and decision of a nonprofit. The mission statement must…
What was Fair Market Value of Mother’s Gift?
The U.S. Tax Court has decided in favor of a mother who gave her children property in exchange for their promise to pay any additional estate tax liability that might arise if she died within three years of making the gift. The fair market value of that property for gift tax purposes was reduced by…
IRS Seeks Comments on Tax-Exempt Status
Initial guidance on qualification requirements for tax exemption as a social welfare organization has been issued by the IRS and the Department of Treasury. The agencies are also seeking comments on the requirements – and expect to receive a large number of them. “Candidate-related political activity” is defined in the new guidance and would amend…
Sticky Fingers in the Cash Register? How to Stop It
Chances are, your employees would never steal from you. Even so, as Ronald Reagan advised, “Trust but verify.” Waiting too long could limit your ability to prosecute when theft does occur. Before it’s too late, nip pilfering in the bud. Here are six steps to follow: 1. Compare gross sales to net sales. The difference between…
Do You Have a Plan for your Practice?
How well do you handle the business side of your practice? Like it or not, the legal profession is a business, too – a business that grows more competitive every year. Yet attorneys aren’t necessarily trained to run a business. They’re trained to represent clients in legal matters. Considered from a business standpoint, law firms…
Ten Ways to Increase the Return on your Rental Property
You’ve purchased an investment property and it’s doing all right, but it’s time for your rental property to start generating more cash flow. After all, your taxes and insurance keep going up and the cost of repairs is cutting into your profit margin. As with any other investment, there are two primary ways to increase…
Expense Accounts: Ten Ways to Prevent Fraud
One of the easiest ways to steal from a company is through expense reimbursements. Last year, nearly 15 percent of all fraud schemes investigated involved expense reimbursement fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners biannual 2012 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse. The median loss in these schemes, in which an…