by Leif Jensen | Aug 1, 2016 | General |
Death has an immediate impact in more ways than most think. I wrote that a friend and client passed away recently. Beyond the immediate impact on his family or on me personally. I think the biggest impact was on the company he worked at. He was the sole IT...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 27, 2016 | General |
As I was discussing over lunch with a financial advisor; there are times when clients have special needs or requests. Beyond the fact that all clients have their preference on how they interact with us, or the similarities of the requests. Our wealthier...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 26, 2016 | General |
In my continuing quest to learn the answer, to the question how can I further assist my clients better, I stumbled over these statistics. They seem odd to me. Seemingly 22.7% of the profits realized in the US come from the financial services industry, I am including...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 25, 2016 | General |
Surprise the IRS and the courts are sticklers on allowing business mileage write-offs. In a recent case a taxpayer used his personal auto in his business of marketing petroleum properties. For some activities, he kept a meticulous log with the exact miles...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 20, 2016 | General |
In another case an insider trader does not get a tax write-off for the forfeiture of his profits. A former executive was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to jail. He was also forced to return the stock sale gains that were derived from his crime, the...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 19, 2016 | General |
Have you ever wondered what the purpose of Qualified Plan audits? Uncle is looking for large participant loans are a key examination issue. During an audit, the IRS checks how plans handle loans, such as the time they allow for repayment and what happens upon...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 18, 2016 | General |
At this moment e-commerce sales are not now subject to sales tax collection for small out of state vendors. The basis for this is a Supreme Court decision that shields out-of-state sellers with no physical presence in the buyer’s home state from having to...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 13, 2016 | General |
How would you alter your business model if your main source of income was now illegal? You state it could never happen? Well remember prohibition? It may not be a real option that it could not happen, but are nimble enough to switch gears and stay in business?...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 12, 2016 | General |
I was introduced to a unique way looking at rationale for estate planning. The advisor quoted that there are only four reasons people typically do estate planning. Predators – sons and daughters in law, keep the cash away from them Outlive wealth – do not wish to run...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 11, 2016 | General |
When I am meeting with clients to do their tax planning for the next year, one of the items that I ask about is how up to date their estate planning documents are. It is surprising who has their done and who does not. If you do not have valid or up to date...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 7, 2016 | General |
This is becoming a growing topic of concern. I have been to two presentations where the accuracy calculations have been stressed. If you are working with a financial advisor they should be well informed on the rules and regulations. How the funds are titiled...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 6, 2016 | General |
I was meeting with a straggling individual client and they were amusing me with their tale of woe as to how their employer now has some internal communication issues. It seems that with a couple of new hires the informational flow that has been in place for...
by Leif Jensen | Jul 5, 2016 | General |
I recently had a vendor attempt to charge me for their travel time. I was quite surprised because no one has ever tried that with me before. I have had plumbers and electricians state that there would be minimum charges for them showing up. But when I call them I...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 29, 2016 | General |
I was giving a client a difficult time because they had hired an employee for whom they did not do a background check on. The employee did not work out well, and there were some minor issues. When I asked what their hiring policy was, they stated that they did...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 28, 2016 | General |
The SEC has issued its rules for crowdfunding to make it a bit easier to govern how start-up firms can raise money from many small backers and how investors can take part in such ventures. Consistent with the JOBS Act, the proposed rules would among other things...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 27, 2016 | General |
I was reading an Op-ed piece in the WSJ, about “What’s Killing Jobs and Stalling the Economy”. The May jobs report was bad. The Op-ed piece, referred to an aspect of the nation’s history, and introduced me to the process called “creative destruction”. This...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 22, 2016 | General |
There have been protests at the McDonald’s Corporate Headquarters recently. The protestors are demanding a higher minimum wage. The problem is that most McDonald’s are owned by independent owner operators and not by the corporate offices. I found an old...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 21, 2016 | General |
I have random quotes on all of the pages of my website. They are financial in nature and surprising after years of them being there, finally with the new website I am getting comments on them. Apparently they were surprised by the fact that some of them were...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 20, 2016 | General |
A friend and client of mine passed away last month. He was important to me as well as this blog as one of the major IT people whose knowledge I respected, I quizzed him with regularity on what was new and exciting to him and what was on the horizon for the rest of...
by Leif Jensen | Jun 15, 2016 | General |
When I had my website redone years ago I had asked about the view on phones. The designer didn’t have a clue, IT said not to worry because the phones allowed for resizing. Then a few years later, I was told that I needed to have a website that was mobile...
