This past holiday season, taxpayers received a “gift” from Washington, D.C. It’s the PATH Act, which stands for Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015. This act does more than just extend expired tax provisions for another year, the bipartisan deal also makes about one-third of these tax provisions permanent, and many others have been extended  Continue Reading »

Private equity funds offer a way to get a capital infusion for your Maine-based company for a period of time while maintaining a role in its operation and avoiding a sale or a merger. It’s called equity recapitalization and it typically involves selling a minority or majority stake in your company to a private equity fund.  Continue Reading »

For federal income tax purposes, an unincorporated joint venture, other contractual, or co-ownership arrangement, under which several participants conduct a business or investment activity and split the profits, is generally treated as a partnership. If the joint venture or arrangement is not recognized as a separate legal entity (apart from its owners) under applicable state law,  Continue Reading »

Value is relative. Some assignments require the valuation of a minority interest that may lack control and “marketability,” while others call for an appraisal of the entire entity on a controlling basis. How do these situations differ, and how are these differences accounted for by a valuator? Level of Value The ability to sell an investment  Continue Reading »

Privately-held Maine business owners might need appraisals of their interests for many reasons, including: Small business loans, Strategic planning, Mergers, acquisitions and shareholder buy-ins (or buy-outs), Equitable distributions of marital estates, Minority shareholder disputes, Bankruptcy, and Gifts and estate planning. A business valuation is just a formality, isn’t it? Many Maine-based business owners only perceive formal  Continue Reading »

Maine-based small businesses want brilliance and innovation from their employees while they are on the payroll, but they also want their employees to keep those qualities to themselves if they leave the company. Non-compete agreements attempt to that to control any damage that could occur when an employee leaves. With this type of an agreement,  Continue Reading »

Fraud within a small business used to be rare. But now, many different types of organizations are falling victim to internal fraud. The good news is that while no anti-fraud system is infallible,there are things that small business owners can do to reduce the risk of fraud. Some of these things include: Setting up incident  Continue Reading »

When you take out personal loans to buy a Maine-based small business, you want to maximize the tax write-offs for the resulting interest expense. The tax law in this area can seem complicated. But if you do some research ahead of time and talk with Filler & Associates, you can get the best possible outcome. The first  Continue Reading »

As a small business owner, you may have had the experience of buying a new, state of the art machine, only to find out that you paid more for features you really didn’t need. Or maybe you’ve invested in an inexpensive piece of business equipment that didn’t work properly and ended up being more trouble  Continue Reading »

Financial experts are often needed in commercial litigation cases. They could be used to value a business, figure out economic damages, or to look into fraud allegations. In these cases, the quality of the numeric data that is available to the expert is critical, affecting both the time that the financial expert must put into  Continue Reading »