Business News Online

Posted on Monday, 14th June 2010 by Gregory Moore

Do you have something you like to splurge on, even when it’s not the best idea? Whether it’s eating every meal out, picking up all the latest gadgets, or hitting the mall for shoe-buying sprees, your splurges could be costing you more than you think. Curbing the habit can help you build your savings and even tackle debt. Here are a few ways to do it:

1. Keep track of what you spend. Once you’ve recorded a few weeks or a month, highlight your luxuries (anything not totally necessary) to see where you’re spending the most.

2. Calculate what it’s costing you. That $4 almond latte you have every weekday may be just $4, but that adds up to a whopping $1,040 a year. To get a

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Posted on Sunday, 13th June 2010 by Jeremy Lee

By Oregon Tax News,

Thanks to the IRS, successful gamblers may become losers.  Those gamblers who win $600 from racetracks and state lotteries, $1,200 or more from slots or bingo, $1,500 from keno, or $5,000 from poker will receive a Form W-2G from the IRS to report their winnings.  Federal tax law acknowledges wins as income but only acknowledges losses in relation to the wins in the same year.  For example, if a person wins $10,000 this year and loses $9,000 next year, his two-year total of taxable gambling income is going to be $10,000, not $1,000.  Individuals who win $10,000 at poker in June, lose $10,000 in July could wind up significantly boosting their taxes.

The exception to the rule is the rare taxpayer who claims to be a professional gambler.  This elite group does not have a same-year timing problem. They

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Posted on Saturday, 12th June 2010 by Jeremy Lee

Every company has an accountant. They are often seen as gray men, with round glasses and little social skills. Many think that their existence is justified by bookkeeping, which, in turn, is a law enforced requirement, right?

Wrong.

They can do a lot for your business, even preventing critical failures that could potentially put you out of business.

They periodically produce three sheets of paper, the balance sheet, the income statement (or Profit & Loss statement, P&L) and the cash flow statement.

The balance sheet is a summary document which gives a very aggregated view of assets and liabilities, that is, of strengths and weaknesses of the company.

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Posted on Saturday, 12th June 2010 by Laura Hernandez

permits now in hand, Babcock Ranch developer Syd Kitson is thinking about systems.

The real estate downturn has thrown a pall over this project, as it has others, but whenever the 18,000-acre ranch is developed, Kitson wants it to be the first of its kind in many aspects.

Now that the project is moving into the design-and-engineering phase, the firsts Kitson envisions for Babcock Ranch are coming together in what he calls “a system of systems.”

Babcock’s need to have a city-wide solar power grid, ultra-speed broadband, energy efficiency and other state-of-the-art features led to the announcement last week that IBM would supply software to help Kitson & Partners engineer and design its city and to integrate all these systems.

That partnership led Kitson to a stage in Orlando on Tuesday, where he addressed 4,000 IBM employees and their clients about making the systems work together.

On top of these workaday functions for the planned city of 20,000 homes is an issue of critical importance to Floridians these days: economic development.

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Posted on Wednesday, 9th June 2010 by Gregory Moore

Credit card fraud is a serious issue, and retailers and credit card issuers have enacted a number of measures to help protect your identity and their bottom-lines. But the backlash of tighter security is that many common citizens are needlessly being treated like potential criminals. The ever-shifting rules for credit card security make it difficult for customers to know when they should give up their personal information and when they have every right to clam up. In spite of that, here are four situations where the law is clear.

Showing Your ID at Checkout

Many grocery stores, department stores and other retail stores ask to see your ID whenever you swipe a credit card.

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Posted on Wednesday, 9th June 2010 by Laura Hernandez

But when the first big test came this week, oil slipped right past the 18-inch-thick barriers, entering two Florida bays and shattering local residents’ faith that the booms will protect their fragile inland waters.

There is a growing feeling that they offer little more than psychological security.

“I don’t have confidence in the booms,” said Tony Kennon, the mayor of Orange Beach, Ala., a barrier island town that controls the pass into Florida’s westernmost waterway, Perdido Bay, about 20 miles west of Pensacola.

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