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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Investors Tap Into 401(k) Money Tax-Free for Business Startups - BusinessWeek

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Hal Mottet, a Lake Oswego, Oregon, businessman bought a family-owned packaging company for $3.5 million in late 2007, and he and a partner financed 40 percent of the sales price with their retirement money.

Start a 401 K plan today: Pension Plans

More Americans Enrolling in Health Savings Accounts

"A new census released by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) has found that ten million Americans are now using a Health Savings Account (HSA), an increase of 25% since last year. With upcoming changes likely to most insurance plans due to the health care reform law, will an HSA benefit you?" Read More

HSA Heatlh Plan Quotes: Affordable HSA PLANS

Learn about HSA here: HSA Plans explained

Federal Plans and What They Mean for Small Business

Employee Benefit Newsletter










The United States Small Business Administration states that, among the 25.8 million businesses in the United States, over 99 percent of employers are small businesses. In fact, small businesses are key drivers of growth in the U.S. economy, creating more than 66 percent of all new jobs each year. President Obama’s initiatives to create jobs reflect these statistics by including substantial assistance plans for small businesses to free up access to capital, ease the burdens of health care costs, and fund innovation and development.



According to Obama, “The true engine of job creation will always be businesses. What government can do is fuel that engine: by giving entrepreneurs and companies the support to open their doors, expand, and hire more workers. Today, we're taking another step towards assisting small business owners to get the capital they need to grow and hire.”



The Small Business Lending Fund and Other Financing Sources



The Administration has earmarked $30 billion in Small Business Lending Fund capital to assist community-based banks in increasing lending to small businesses.



Approximately 8,000 banks fit the mold, with assets of just under $10 billion and a customer base of local community businesses.



Small Business Lending Funds would provide these banks with the necessary liquidity to loosen the reins on small business lending and jump-start growth in this sector. This initiative would be funded by repayments from large banks that benefited from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout of Wall Street’s financial crisis that culminated in the fall of 2009. In addition, banks would receive a substantial cut in the dividend tax rate for up to 5 years. For small businesses, it provides new and expanded access to capital necessary to invest, hire, and grow.



In addition to government-sponsored programs to fuel lending to small business, other financing options include angel investors and venture capitalists, commercial bank loans, Small Business Administration loans, and home-equity loans.



Small Business Real Estate Refinancing



The President has also proposed a program to allow small business owners to refinance existing mortgages through a Small Business Administration 504 Loan Program that provides guarantees for loans for the development of real estate and other fixed assets. SBA Administrator Karen Mills states, “Thousands of good, creditworthy businesses find themselves caught by declining real estate values as a result of this recession. With many of them now facing mortgages coming due in the next few years, the ability to refinance into SBA’s 504 loan will give them the chance to lock in long-term, stable financing, as well as protect jobs by protecting small businesses from foreclosure.” Learn more about 504 loans.



Health Care Initiatives



Providing health care to employees without the bargaining power and leverage held by large corporations has made health care costs prohibitive to owners of small businesses. In response, Obama has proposed:



•A tax credit of up to 50 percent of the premiums paid to cover workers for firms with 25 full-time workers or less. The White House Council of Economic Advisers states that approximately 4 million small businesses will be eligible for this tax credit for providing health insurance to their employees.

•Creation of The National Health Exchange, a low-cost, high-quality source of health insurance that all small businesses can buy into, raising the collective purchasing power and spreading the risk and administrative costs.

•Reimbursement of catastrophic costs, or “reinsurance” for small business employers of those workers with chronic illness.

Keep up-to-date on the latest health care reforms impacting small business.



Tax Incentives and Additional Funds for Small Business



The Obama Administration has proposed the elimination of all capital gains taxes for small and start-up businesses to create incentives for investment in the small business sector. Last year’s Recovery Act instituted an exemption of 75 percent. This proposal would increase that exemption to 100 percent on investments in small business.



In addition, Obama states that he would like to double federal funding for research, alternative energy sources, continued advancement of broadband technology, and implementation of a research and development tax credit to help businesses invest in innovation.

By Jim Casey

Leader, Small Business Marketing, D&B

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Employees with Company Health Insurance Will Pay More

Will health care reform will push up an already escalating cost for health insurance.

If you are an employee with a big company and you have health insurance, chances are your employer will continue to provide you with insurance. However, 88 percent of employers plan to pass along increases in health care to their employees, which in turn will make it hardly anymore affordable for the workers.

Helping Employers and Employees to find affordable health care coverages.




More Medicare, Medicaid Patients Turning to Alternative Therapies?

Submitted by Denise Reynolds RD on 2010-05-26

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasing in the United States. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), about 38% of adults in the US used some form of CAM in 2007. Most of those are women with higher levels of education and income, however it appears that more patients on government healthcare plans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, are also using CAM due to frustration with access to standard healthcare.  click on the here for full article



Looking for medicare coverage:  Medicare Supplements

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Employee Fraud and how to cope!






If you ever worry about the risk of being defrauded, here's


a number to take your breath away: almost a trillion dollars per year.



That's how much businesses lose to occupational fraud –

inside jobs, usually by employees. Shocking, isn't it? It

represents about 7% of total company revenues.



The numbers come from the experts – the Association of

Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) – in their latest annual report.



Not surprisingly, the firms that lose the most are the ones

that have taken the least action to try to prevent employee fraud.

And the crime is disproportionately worse in small and medium

sized businesses, which are the most vulnerable.



You won’t be surprised to know that most employee fraud originates

in the accounting department, but it's distressing to learn that second

place goes to executives and management, followed by

operations and sales departments.



And although you can actually insure against loss through

fraud, I'm sure you'd agree that taking some smart and simple

steps to prevent the crime is your best starting point – and the

best way of keeping any insurance premium as low as possible!



Nothing's fool-proof but I've compiled this list of a dozen things

you can start to do right now to virtually eliminate the risk of

employee fraud – or to quickly expose the culprits:



1. Build your company culture on integrity. Be a role model of honesty yourself.

2. Be seen to deal quickly and firmly with any employee misconduct whatsoever.

3. Don’t allow one employee to be responsible for both billing and handling payments.

4. Insist that all checks above a fairly low amount have two signatures.

5. Never sign blank checks, or checks for new suppliers without verifying them.

6. Tell your bank not to permit transfers between accounts without your say-so.

7. Carefully screen all new employees, taking up references and monitoring them.

8. Keep an eye on disgruntled employees or those who seem to be living above their means.

9. Regularly check financial statements yourself – take a course if you're not up to scratch.

10. Conduct surprise audits – with no warnings, or when your bookkeeper is on vacation.

11. Use sequential numbering on checks, purchase orders, invoices, so it's easy to spot gaps.

12. Run a test by submitting a money order or check as an unspecified payment.



It's important to let your employees know of these policies –

especially items 2 and 12 – since that's the easiest way to

discourage fraud in the first place.



You might also want to implement – and tell everyone about it –

an anonymous "whistleblower" policy that enables suspicious

employees to report their concerns to you.



With a little bit of forethought, you can slash the likelihood of

fraud in your business – even the ACFE figures show that.

If you're not already doing it, there's no time like the present

to tackle my Top 12 list!

Monday, May 03, 2010

Dr. Oz Gives GMA Viewers Six Step Plan for Long Life

Because of the many demands placed on us today, many people find it difficult to take the necessary time to exercise and plan for healthy meals. But Dr. Mehmet Oz, physician, talk show host and author, told AARP Magazine and Good Morning America Viewers to “stop making excuses”. Poor diet and lack of exercise can be more harmful than a disease.

Dr. Oz says that it is never too late to start following a better lifestyle, and one of the best ways to go about making major changes is to do them in a step-wise fashion, incorporating them slowly so that they become habits and not burdens.

Dr. Oz Gives GMA Viewers Six Step Plan for Long Life click here for more information

Saturday, May 01, 2010

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Hopes to Remove Stigma

Mental health issues affect all of society in some way, shape, or form. It is estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year and that translates to about 57.7 million people.


May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Hopes to Remove Stigma: click here for more information

Grocery Shopping with Food Safety in Mind

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food-borne illnesses cause about 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,200 deaths each year across the US. Congress introduced legislation last year, called HR 875 (S510 in the Senate) Food Safety Modernization Act to establish a Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public from preventable contaminants that cause food-borne illness, however the bill has been delayed because of the recent healthcare reform law and, most recently, consideration of financial regulatory reform.

Grocery Shopping with Food Safety in Mind for more information click here.