As a Maine-based small business owner, you may be considering going back to school to gain new skill to help your business. Are the tuition expenses tax deductible? The training must meet one or both of the following standards to be considered work-related education for business deduction purposes: In order to retain your current professional  Continue Reading »

If you operate your Maine-based business as a sole proprietorship, a single-member LLC (which is treated as a sole proprietorship for tax purposes), or a husband-wife partnership, here’s a great family tax planning deal: Hire your under-age-18 children as legitimate employees of the business. It doesn’t matter if they work part-time or full-time. This idea  Continue Reading »

When there is an alleged breach of contract between two businesses, can one sue the other for both damages and loss of business value? As an example, say that Trusty Trucking Company loses its contract to deliver insulation for its primary customer, Good Insulation Company. Furthermore, the contract loss was due to an alleged breach by  Continue Reading »

A lot of people consider turning a favorite hobby into a money-making operation. And you could be eligible for some tax deductions by starting a Maine-based sideline business. Some expense deductions that could be possible include equipment, advertising, subscriptions and business-related auto costs. It may even be possible to claim a loss that can lower  Continue Reading »

Even when a case ostensibly is not about valuation, valuation issues often play a pivotal role, and failure to provide a valuation may undermine a party’s claim. This is one of the lessons gleaned from a Delaware shareholder suit that moved from the Delaware Court of Chancery to the state’s Supreme Court on a novel  Continue Reading »

It’s critical to have a written policy at your company detailing how vacation and paid time off is accrued. Many small businesses offer paid vacation, paid sick leave, paid time off or paid holidays, but have no formal policy in place. Legally, there is an implied policy, based on the company’s history of awarding paid  Continue Reading »

When dealing with accounts receivable, it can be easy to put off having a policy in place to protect your business. As unpleasant as it can be do deal with customers who aren’t paying their bills, it is far worse for your small business to do nothing and hope the issue doesn’t come up. Here  Continue Reading »

As a small business owner, you are always going to have customers who don’t pay their bills on time. Due to unique relationships with customers as well as the varied responses they have to collection efforts, trying to collect the money owed to your business can be a difficult situation. Customizing guidelines for each account  Continue Reading »

Just as film critics predict that a movie they see today will be a contender in next year’s Oscar race, we venture to say that the Tax Court’s recent Estate of Richmond opinion will be one of the most important valuation decisions of 2014. It deals with a number of hot topics: dividend capitalization versus  Continue Reading »

It isn’t necessarily true that to increase profits a small business needs to increase sales. Extra cash could already be available. A thorough profit audit can uncover those dollars in every department of your Maine-based small business. Here are five ways to start looking for extra cash:  If you’re interested in borrowing money, you may  Continue Reading »