Building Construction

‘BIM’ enters construction vocabulary
Three letters – BIM – are increasingly becoming part of the ABCs of construction technology. What is BIM? BIM, which stands for building information modeling, refers to the creation and coordinated use of digital information about a building project, according to the Construction Management Association of America.

10 tax tips for real estate investors
These are tricky times for real estate investments. While many properties still have solid appreciation, the market continues to slide, and a turnaround is not expected anytime soon. As you ride out the slide, here are some strategies to help you minimize the sting of taxes.

What is the true value of a business valuation?
Although a business valuation is important for contractors considering an ownership transition or business sale, it serves many other purposes. A valuation should be considered when seeking loans, establishing an employee stock option plan, creating a buy-sell agreement, contemplating a merger or acquisition or engaging in estate planning or gift taxation.

Family Business

When your name is your business -- Planning successful succession
If your business is closely identified with you or your partners, carefully consider the impact of transferring leadership to other family members, professional managers or new owners before making any drastic changes. This article uses the case of Ben & Jerry's ice cream company to illustrate the best approach to succession when your name is your business.

Business, family demands require good balancing act
Ask anyone who owns a small business, and they’ll tell you how quickly the business can take over your life. Keeping the needs of the business from taking over is tough. Running a business does take time, but keeping a family together does, too. Yes, you do have to make some sacrifices to make your business a success, but your family shouldn’t be one of those sacrifices. So how can you keep the demands of your business in check?

Mentoring may deliver the work force you need
If one of your key managers were to suddenly leave the business or become incapacitated, do you have someone qualified to take that manager’s place immediately? Could you prevent your business from suffering while a replacement grows into the role? If not, a mentoring program might be the answer. Mentoring pairs seasoned employees – mentors – with less experienced employees – mentees – to help foster your employees’ career development and professional growth.

General Business

Consumer-directed health plans: Are they right for your company?
CDHPs are an attempt to make the system more rational by giving consumers a financial stake in their healthcare decision making as well as giving them tools to make good healthcare choices to stay healthier in the first place. The plans are currently most popular among large employers, but 10 percent of employees of small enterprises (those with under 200 employees) are enrolled in CDHPs, and that number is growing for all size employers.

Workplace romance: Do you have a policy?
What better place than work to meet a potential romantic partner – someone with similar values and interests that you get to know slowly over time. We all know happy couples who met at work. But when handled poorly, workplace romance can cause serious problems for the whole organization.

Investigating a Fraud: Verbal – and nonverbal – clues point to guilt
A properly planned interview can yield much more than simply learning about a subject’s background information. Techniques such as behavior analysis can be used to determine whether someone is being truthful or deceitful. By incorporating behavior-provoking questions during the session, the interviewer can observe and analyze verbal, as well as nonverbal, responses.

Manufacturing

Compensation, incentive plans bolster employee morale
Outsourcing to a low-wage country sounds like a great way to save money. But, it won’t work in the distribution and logistics sector, where you need hands-on people. It’s important to keep your best workers by letting them know how much they really earn and developing incentive programs that offer opportunities to earn still more.

Five ratios help you manage from the balance sheet
Managing and measuring growth from the balance-sheet side of the company’s books can often generate stronger financial performance. By taking a look at both assets and liabilities, management can ensure that the company’s growth plans do not increase debt and cause cash flow or liquidity problems.

Cash flow forecast can help you weather rainy days
Most business owners learn very quickly that there is a big difference between profit and cash flow. This lesson is so important that a failure to grasp its business significance may lead to a failure of the business itself. First, it is important to be clear about what the term “cash” means.

Nonprofit Organizations

Six ways to deal with difficult employees
Dealing with difficult employees is one of the most stressful aspects of a manager’s job, if not the most stressful. Here are some strategies for coping with these employees and reducing your stress.

What’s in a minute? Keys to properly recording board actions
Some people might argue that the keeping of board minutes is the most important job on any board of directors. It’s a common axiom that if a discussion or action is not in the minutes, it didn’t happen. Although that may be extreme, any discussion or action that escapes inclusion in the minutes will probably not be treated seriously in the future, if treated at all. Accurate minutes are also important to the Internal Revenue Service. If you are audited, your organization may be asked to provide copies of the minutes for the period being audited.

The SOX effect: Nonprofits are looking more like for-profits
Hold a mirror up to a nonprofit these days and, many times, the reflection you’ll see is a more corporate image than in the past. And that’s a good thing. Because as fiscal pressure mounts, combined with donor demand for increased oversight and heightened enforcement from the IRS, nonprofits need the expertise and the survival instinct that corporate entities have developed in the marketplace.

Physician Services

Engaging meetings can reinvigorate your practice
Nothing is more frustrating to a busy physician than a poorly run meeting. But regular partner meetings facilitate strategic planning, entry into new ventures and votes on key decisions. And staff meetings can help communicate and advance your practice’s mission and goals. By using common sense and some basic rules of meeting management, you can conduct effective meetings that engage partners and employees instead of putting them to sleep.

Will healthcare issues affect your vote for president?
Are the views of the voters and the current crop of presidential candidates in line with physicians’ views about where the healthcare industry needs to go? Some candidates are calling for greater governmental involvement. Others want the market to decide.

New tax write-offs may stimulate practice updates
The centerpiece of the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 may be the large dose of rebate checks ordered up as a remedy for the economy’s lethargy. But Congress prescribed the new tax law’s real therapeutics for businesses such as your medical practice. Although temporary tax depreciation enhancements have attracted less press coverage than the rebate checks, they may make 2008 the year you decide to significantly update your medical equipment or remodel your practice office. One thing to keep in mind is that you may have to act quickly to take advantage of the new depreciation incentives Congress has approved to stimulate business activity.

Wealth Advice and Financial Planning

How to deal with gambling-related tax questions
With the expansion of casino gambling and the proliferation of state lotteries, it’s not surprising that many of us are occasionally tempted to lay down a little money and try our luck. Of course, most of the time, as luck would have it – we lose. When we get lucky, the tax man gets lucky, too. Gambling winnings are taxable, just like wages. The IRS even requires casinos and lottery agencies to withhold taxes from winnings in some situations. The fact that gambling winnings are taxable income doesn’t surprise most people. And most are aware that gambling losses are tax deductible – up to the amount of winnings for the year.

Should you choose gym membership or a home gym?
Looking for the best value when it comes to getting in shape depends not only on how deep your pockets are but also on what you’re looking for in a workout.

Facing reality may require some ‘pension pinching’
In recent years, soon-to-be-retirees from all walks of life have been forced to face the reality that their future income stream might not be nearly as bountiful as they once had imagined. Of the 77 million baby boomers now nearing retirement, many are in danger of running out of funds prematurely, according to experts. Surprisingly, even the wealthiest individuals are at risk, particularly as insurance premiums and other healthcare costs continue to escalate beyond past estimates.

Valuations

Valuation analysts, attorneys team up for acquisitions value
The successful sale of a business will generally involve the services of various professionals, including CPAs who are valuation specialists and attorneys. Clients can maximize their value in such a transaction by assuring that the professionals they engage are working together to share information and coordinate their activities with a minimum of overlap.

Key ingredients for the marketing mix at law firms
More than ever before, marketing gurus are making their mark in the legal profession. In trying to build a marketing program, law firms should consider these questions.

Senior partner retiring? Options to consider
Sooner or later, a partner in your firm will retire. When that time comes, are you prepared to deal with the inevitable changes? How will you account for the intangible assets that the partner has cultivated over the years? The structure of the buyout payments will determine who bears the biggest tax burden – the retiring partner or the remaining partners. Is there a way to compromise so neither party bears most of the tax burden?

Washington Tax Update

Tax planning tip of the week

What’s new from the IRS

What’s new from the courts

It bears repeating

Tax Laughs

Tax planning tip of the week

What’s new from Congress

What else is new from Congress

What’s new from the courts

Tax laughs