Homeschoolers Work At Home Virtually

Regardless of how much you love your business, there will always be times when you have trouble motivating yourself to work. It happens to everyone from time to time. And, during the slow times, you’re able to slack off a bit. However, a too-relaxed attitude begins to cause waves when a deadline is looming and you have a project to finish.

Use these seven tips to help you to meet any deadline: (more…)

If writing copy gets you down, makes you cringe or want to hide then this is a must-listen to audio. It’s free and totally awesome! As a fledgling writer I picked up a lot of tips that I’ll be implementing on my own Virtual Assistant website over the weekend.  But enough of me, let me introduce you to the Mistress of Writing (and my new hero), Tammi Metzler:

“Hi everyone, I wanted to check in to make sure you didn’t miss this week’s free teleseminar, “The 5 Must-Have Elements of a Website That Will Instantly Establish Your Credibility, Form a Connection With Your Prospective Clients, and Get Your Website Visitors to Take Action!” And if you did miss it, I’d like to give you another shot to listen in on these insider secrets. (more…)

Summer is a great time to stretch your legs and get outside for some awesome fun in the sun. It’s also a great time to stretch your mind and enhance your business! I love VA Classroom and this summer they’re making it easier than for aspiring VAs to learn the ropes and veteran VAs to hone their skills for a more profitable year.

So let’s do BOTH!!

This year, check out VAClassroom’s Summer Skill Camp 2010 – an amazing opportunity for you to build ten new skills and ultimately ten new income-building opportunities for your virtual business.

While this particular summer camp may not include the usual weenie roasts and campfire singalongs like you might be accustomed to with other summer camps, it will offer an easy and profitable way to develop the right “in-demand” skills at the right time to hit the ground running in your virtual business for the last half of 2010!

Here’s what skills you’ll be building:

* Develop the right system for creating a profitable, in-demand Facebook Page Service.

* Receive an easy-to-follow blueprint for building an effective online newsletter or ezine.

* Discover proven techniques for designing a winning WordPress Blog.

* Uncover and implement the right kind of WordPress plugins to ignite traffic and results for you and your clients.

* Learn how to leverage a freebie offer or information product to attract and win new clients.

* Discover a simple formula for crafting and delivering top-notch social media presentations to your clients and community.

* Master a proven system for seamlessly organizing your many social networking activities.

* Learn how to effectively measure your client’s Internet Marketing results and success.

* Receive an easy formula for writing articles and press releases that produce results.

* Develop a winning squeeze page or landing page that converts for you or your clients.

10 in-demand skills over 10 weeks. What could be more perfect?

VAClassroom has opened its registration doors to their “Summer Skill Camp 2010?, which will begin on July 6th. Right now they’re offering an early bird registration special.

Check out all the details here: http://www.hs-wahm.com/summercamp

Enjoy your summer!

In this installment, Sandy discusses the top five tax myths that he has encountered over the years of working with the IRS and as a tax attorney:

I just had a tax seminar where we had 30 participants out of 30,000 mailings. Considering that I usually save people $5.000-$20,000 in new deductions, this low turnout was all the more perplexing. I decided to call up some people who did not attend and find out what was the problem. Astonishingly, there are a number of widespread tax myths that seem to impoverish most people and make the IRS more money than would be ordinarily due them. This article is a summation of some of the bigger, more widespread of these myths.

1. “If I don’t take every deduction, I will reduce my chance of an audit.” This is absolutely untrue. If you were to ask any former IRS agent they would tell you that you have only given some extra money to you “Uncle Sam” and won’t even get a thank you. If you really want to do this, make it a charitable contribution and take a deduction.
2. “I didn’t make a lot of money this year so I didn’t feel that I needed to attend a tax seminar.” This is also a big mistake. If knowledge of some unknown deductions creates a loss because the deductions exceeded your limited income from your endeavor, you may use the loss against any form of income that you have such as wages, dividends, interest, pensions and rents. If the loss exceeds your personal income, you can use it against a spouse’s earnings if you file jointly. Thus, you will never get divorced!  If the loss exceeds the income that both you and your spouse have earned, you can carry back all business losses two years and offset the last two years of tax that you paid into the IRS or to most states.

   Moreover, if that doesn’t cover all your losses, you can carryover all business losses twenty years and offset up to the next twenty years of earnings. Thus, even if you didn’t make a lot of money, tax knowledge will always pay you back. In fact, if your earnings were limited this year, it becomes even more vital since you can use the subsidy that you would get from the increase in your deductions even more than those that already have more money than they can spend.

3. “My accountant takes care of my taxes” or “My spouse takes care of my taxes.” This may be the single biggest myth and wealth killer in the US. It certainly makes the IRS more money than any other myth. I equate this with “my doctor takes care of my body.” Wouldn’t it be great if we could eat all the fattening foods that we want and never exercise, yet, once a year go to a doctor and get a form of “Roto Rooter” job? If you don’t know what to tell your accountant by December 31 or if your documentation isn’t right, there is very little that they can do for you.

   Sadly, accountants also have a conflict of interest when preparing our returns. They are subject to both a high standard for taking a deduction and are subject to high civil penalties. Thus, as many accountants have informed me, “they would rather not tell a client about a deduction that may be questioned if it results in any risk to the accountant.”

4. “Keeping good records isn’t worth the time or expense.” This is also a major mistake. I estimate that most people can be audit proof by keeping records that would take no longer than 3 minutes a week. This is about 150 minutes a year, which is about 21/2 hours a year. This may, at first, seem like a lot of time, but this would save approximately $4,000-15,000 in taxes. Even using the low-end figure, this averages to be about $1,333 per hour and it is tax free. I bet that you don’t earn this in an hour!
5. “I heard that I had to have a profit or had to have a profit three out of the last five years.” This is only partially true. The tax law provides that if you run your business like a business and not like a hobby, you can use the losses as discussed above. If you are deemed to be hobby, your losses from your endeavor are limited to the income from the endeavor with no carry back or carry over. There is a presumption that if you have a profit three out of the past five years, you have a business profit motive. However, the important point about this widespread myth is that this is a presumption that can be rebutted. I have a whole chapter in my series “Tax Strategies for Business Professionals” and “Tax Strategies For Home Based Business” where I discuss this.

However, basically you need:

- A five year projection of income and expenses, which will project an eventual profit

- A marketing plan

- A good tax organizer and good documentation

- Working your business at least 45 minutes a day, four to five days a week

- Attendance at training

- Consultation with experts

- Changing the way an activity is marketed from year to year especially if no profit is shown.

Thus, this presumption can be overcome with proper knowledge and some simple planning.

In short, tax knowledge can and will benefit anyone at any income. One seminar participant summed it up very well by saying,” The more you know, the less you’ll owe!” I couldn’t agree more.

Sandy Botkin is a CPA, attorney and former trainer of IRS attorneys nationwide. He lectures all over the nation on tax planning for self-employed and corporate taxpayers and can be seen in the big events with Donald Trump, Anthony Robbins and many others. He has been written up in Newsweek and in many other magazines. He is also a syndicated writer and noted author of this famed tape series “Tax Strategies for Business Professionals” and “Tax and Financial Strategies for Residential Real Estate.” To find out more about Sandy and his products, check out his terrific small business web site at: www.taxreductioninstitute.com or by calling his office at 301-972-3600 in Maryland.

photo credit: atadesigner

I don’t know about you, but recording my deposits (and withdrawals) in my check register is the most challenging part of being in business. I don’t know what it about the idea of writing up my daily deposits and expenditures that make me so very, very tired. (Sigh.) The thought of sitting down with my check register (or Quicken for that matter) is enough to make me want to run away to the circus. Maybe the thought of putting my daily receipts in writing, a permanent record of my successes and indiscretions, is too much for me. Or maybe I’m just weird. Who knows? Well Sandy’s Botkin wrote an excellent article on the importance of keeping written records:

Too many times people have said at my seminars that they are worried about an audit because they do not the receipts for the documentation taken. Unfortunately, there is more to an audit than worrying about documentation for deductions. They need to worry about the income side as well.

IRS has recently instituted an extra type of audit procedure. Regardless of the type of audit, IRS now asks for all bank records and money market accounts for the year or years covering the audit. At first blush, this may seem strange. If you were being audited for your automobile or travel expenses, why would IRS want to see your yearly bank records? The answer is that IRS is now checking all taxpayers for unreported income.

IRS will match all deposits made into your bank accounts and compare the totals to your reported income. If the deposits exceed what you reported as income, you’d better have a great explanation or IRS will hit you with “unreported income” on the difference.

You might be thinking, “wait a minute, not every deposit is taxable.” This is quite true. Gifts and inheritances are tax-free. Reimbursements from insurance companies and by employers for business expenses where a proper accounting was made are also tax-free. Most municipal bond interest is tax-free. I had a student who could never balance his bank account. His idea of balancing an account was to close out one account every six months and open up another one. I hope this doesn’t apply to you! None of these items mentioned are taxable. However, unless you can clearly demonstrate that the deposits came from a tax-exempt source, IRS will construe your deposits as unreported income.

It is now necessary that you record and identify the sources of all deposits in your check register. For example, if you receive a deposit as a commission checks from X Company, the check register would read,” commission check from X company.” If you were to receive a tax-free reimbursement from your health insurance company, the check register would read,” reimbursement from X health insurance company.”

Finally, for all non-taxable items, make a copy of the check that you received, and put it in a yearly file. Thus if you receive a reimbursement from your employer for business expenses that you gave an accounting for, you should copy the check.

If you follow my advice, you will certainly make any IRS audit less painful and make your life less taxing.

Sandy Botkin is a CPA, attorney and former trainer of IRS attorneys nationwide. He lectures all over the nation on tax planning for self-employed and corporate taxpayers and can be seen in the big events with Donald Trump, Anthony Robbins and many others. He has been written up in Newsweek and in many other magazines. He is also a syndicated writer and noted author of this famed tape series “Tax Strategies for Business Professionals” and “Tax and Financial Strategies for Residential Real Estate.”

To find out more about Sandy and his products, check out his terrific small business web site at: www.taxreductioninstitute.com or by calling his office at 301-972-3600 in Maryland

photo credit: Hello Turkey Toe

I must admit that we’re just getting our taxes to our accountant (okay we’ll be delivering it to him next week). Usually we try to get everything done by February, but with all the work that’s been coming through lately my husband and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and get all the receipts and paperwork together. Even if you have completed your taxes and gotten your returns, now’s the time to start planning for next year’s taxes, especially if you work from home.

These tax reduction articles and books are a quick and easy way to get a handle on the tax benefits and challenges available for home-based businesses/work-at-home jobs. I’ve listed two of my favorites books below. And in later posts I’ll be sharing some articles that I’ve gotten permission to reprint from Sandy Botkin, CPA, Esq. that I hope will be as helpful to you as they have been for me.

The Books

• There are many books that explain the tax benefits available for work-at-home businesses and independent contractors. I’ve read a couple of them and my favorite book is Lower Your Taxes – Big Time! 2009-2010 Edition (Lower Your Taxes Big Time) by Sandy Botkin CPA, Esq. It’s divided into logical segments that make it easy to read and digest. (If you’ve ever read IRS tax documentation, you’ll know how important that is!) I also appreciated the information that was available at The Tax Reduction Institute which is run by the author, Sandy Botkin. He even has a Tax IQ test that you might like to take. I sure learned a lot about just how much I still don’t know!
• Although I haven’t read this book in its entirety yet, Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants is also written in an easy to understand way. It also addresses issues such as protecting your business name, trademarks and the like. It looks like a good second choice.

Knowledge is power (and money!) especially when it comes to dealing with the IRS.

photo credit: Muffet

Disclaimer: http://cmp.ly/5/q2n5ri

In my last post I recommended downloading special software that will enable you to transcribe videos using an open source video player. But guess what I learned? I just found out that I can remove audio from videos and use the free Express Scribe software to do the transcription. And it’s simple and FREE!

1. All you need to do is download the free Realplayer software and install it on your computer.
2. Once you’ve completed installation go to the website that has the video that needs to be transcribed.
3. Press Play and then hover your mouse over the upper right hand side of the video. Realplayer will ask you if you wish to download the video.
4. Click on that and the Realplayer Downloader program will pop up. Let the video download completely.
5. Then click on the video and another set of selections will appear under the video. Select Convert Video. Another dialog box will appear.
6. At that point you just select MP3 and tell Realplayer to Save the file and start transcribing.

I also learned (quite by accident) that if your video is an .AVI file, you can transcribe it directly from Express Scribe. No conversion is necesssary. How cool is that?

If you know of any other cool tools to make life easier for the work-at-home crowd, please be sure to add your comment below.

Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5/m4l2iq

Leveraging your time is one of the ways that smart businesses operate. One way that you can do this is by borrowing resources, trading skills and services instead of using money. But first what is a team? According to Webster’s dictionary, a team is “a number of persons associated together in work or an activity.” There are many ways to assemble a team, and one way is through what is known as a joint venture. How does a joint venture work?

• Let’s say that at one of those business mixers you meet a Ms. Escribe who runs a transcription business. You two develop a friendly relationship. Now somewhere down the road you decide to create an audio or webinar product that you want to sell to your client base, but you want to also include a free eBook for those who prefer reading information to watching or listening. You think of Ms. Escribe and give her a call. You tell her your situation and plans. You offer her a deal. If she will do the transcripts for the product launch for free you’ll split the profits from the sale of the eBook and product. Ms. Escribe accepts and now you are in a joint venture.

Carefully planned joint ventures can be a winner for both (or more) parties involved. All you did was exchange skills (her transcription skills for you marketing skills). By exchanging these skills you’ve created another source of income for both of your businesses without any additional cost to either partner.

• Another way to add members to your team is to enlist contractors to get the work done for you. Some virtual assistants are Marketing Mavens and can bring in business faster than you can blink. However, the downside for these gifted people is that now they may have more work than they can physically accomplish! To alleviate the stress (and panic!) that this will cause they reach out to fellow Virtual Assistants for help. These subcontractors are paid to do the overflow work for the Marketing Maven VA who is bringing in the business.

This is another win-win scenario. Newer virtual assistants can join up with experienced VAs while they learn the ropes and gain greater skills. For VAs that may not be as successful in attracting clients, this allows them an opportunity to earn a living while still doing the work that they love. And in many cases they also learn some marketing skills from an expert. Of course the subcontractors are still responsible for their own taxes, so the Marketing Maven VA has not added any additional tax liability to her business.

VAs that create joint ventures and make up a team not only gain the monetary benefits, but have a built a talented support system to keep their business chugging along in good and bad times. Speaking of which, I just found out about an upcoming free teleseminar that’s being held on January 27th, 2010 at 8 PM (EST). It’s being hosted by someone I just discovered named Sydni Craig-Hart. She’s a coach to virtual assistants and has some great material at her websites EAtoVA.com. You can sign up for her seminar by visiting VASuccessSecrets.com.

If you’re a small business owner, how do you know when you need a VA? And more importantly — what do you do with us once you’ve decided to use our expertise?  This is one of the more frustrating aspects of being a VA. People hire you and then don’t let you do anything to help, which of course means less hours, less money and more frustration.

I am very glad to hear about this webinar being hosted by Rhea Perry.  She’s answering questions that small business owners have surrounding the mystique of virtual assistants as well as explaining the best ways to use them. So, if you’re a small business person, please jump on this webinar and find out how we can all work together to build the business of your dreams.  Your virtual assistant will thank you!

“To have a successful business, it helps to have a strong team.

One of the key players on that team can be a Virtual Assistant who operates your  business or ministry completely virtually, like Denise manages everything we do at Educating for Success.

Yet the more small business owners I talk to, the more I realize that way too many folks either don’t know how to hire someone, don’t trust giving their business details to someone else or don’t know who to hire.

I understand completely.

So tomorrow night, Tuesday, Dec. 8, I’m going to conduct a web class for you to explain all that and answer your questions. I want to help you determine what’s keeping you from going forward so you can make 2010 even better than 2009!

Our web class is tomorrow night, Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 9 PM Eastern Time.

Register here to reserve your seat:

http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=7S4s7&m=1dN4mJvOz3dPeP&b=bN7rhz6DUXrP9TKkgeJZtw

I want you to succeed.

You want to succeed.

God wants you to succeed.

What can stop you?

Let’s go!

Rhea!”

I’m going to let you in on a little known method top marketers use to generate themselves recurring tons of cash! We’re talking about Joint Ventures (JV).And not just between 2 or 3 people. We’re talking JVs with all the big dogs in the I.M industry!

A while back I was invited to be part of a huge JV with loads of software and materials. I could reel in as many as 5,000 subscribers in a few days. Probably even thousands more!

Interesting? Click here to find out more:

http://www.hs-wahm.com/JointVentures

This JV is known as the “The Season’s Greetings Giveaway” and is guaranteed to attract over 50,000 visitors in a few days. Ryan Bessling & Rick Yeo, the brains behind this unique idea, have asked me if I knew anyone to participate in this brilliant venture. Since my readers are generally work at home moms, I thought what would be a better way to help others to grow their businesses as well. The sign-up is free, but you will see a couple of upsells that you can take advantage of if you like.

You will love the way everything has been done for you and I excitedly look forward to seeing you here.

To get the “by Invite Only” private JV details, just click on the link  — http://www.hs-wahm.com/JointVentures

And if you’d like to know more about how JVs work in general I found this clip on YouTube that you  might find interesting.

Season’s Greetings,

P.S If you’re a technological klutz, don’t worry. Everything, including promo emails have been all set up and you’re ready to go in a couple of minutes!