Tax Planning Trends Your Business Needs to Be Aware Of

Over the past few years, we’ve seen some major changes in the tax legislation landscape. The complexity and frequency of those changes have meant that businesses have had an increasing need to focus more resources on staying compliant. Worldwide, more than 40 governments have changed hands in a short space of time, and tax legislation has been harnessed in numerous ways by those new leaders. There seems to be no sign of a slow-down any time soon, and it’s becoming clear that tax enforcement will probably just get stronger in the months and years to come. It couldn’t be more important to be aware of the key trends which are currently at the top of global tax authorities’ agendas, so here, we’ll take a closer look at four of them.

Digital Tax

Globally, there has been an ongoing attempt to switch to more digital forms in order to report taxes. This is already having an effect on companies around the world. Not only is there a new format to consider but the level of detail which is required is also more extensive. Increased scrutiny through auditing is also becoming more widespread. This means that businesses are increasingly required to invest more money into expertise and new technology. You need to ensure that you’ve planned your annual budget accordingly to take into account this extra investment and taken the time to source suitably experienced professionals to help you with your strategic tax planning needs such as Corporate Business Solutions Consultants.

Changes in Rates and Rules

In the USA as well as in other parts of the world, tax reforms are well underway. Companies that trade across international borders are going to increasingly need to assess what impact this is going to have on their operations. GST and VAT laws are in the process of being amended around the globe to ensure overseas digital suppliers have liability for their remittance and collection, and many jurisdictions and countries are planning to expand their GST and VAT to digital services across borders.

Greater Transparency

Tax authorities around the world are now focusing on TP (transfer pricing) thanks to political and public pressure, as well as the transparency that is afforded by CbCR (country by country reporting). As transfer pricing is moving from a location-dependent model into the digital environment, businesses that deploy it must generate new strategies, especially as detected of transfer pricing risk is going to be facilitated by technology.

Tax Incentives

Although the goal is to provide businesses with a level playing field, tax incentives remain a mainstay since governments must attract overseas investors to certain sectors. In recent times, tax breaks have focused on R&D on both a corporate and personal tax level. However, there are signs which suggest this trend could be reversing since the figures internationally year on year is down.

With these four key tax planning trends in mind, it’s important to ensure that you have taken appropriate advice from experts in the field. Tax legislation can be a minefield, and you need to ensure that you’ve maximized your opportunities to benefit and mitigated your potential for risk.

2019’s Coming to An End – It’s Time for Your Business Annual Review

Often, people plan their business goals for the year ahead, however, not everybody takes the time to review what’s happened for their business over the past year. There’s a lot to learn about business through research, attending courses and talking to leaders in your field. Yet it’s your own experiences that teach you about the challenges your business is likely to face and how you can best overcome them. An annual business review helps you to determine how well the year went for your company so you can use that knowledge to plan for the year to come.

How Do I Carry Out My Annual Business Review?

It’s isn’t as difficult as you might imagine reviewing your company’s progress during the year. There are just a few questions to answer that allow you to reflect on your challenges and progress:

Did your business make as much progress as you expected this year?

Were your business goals for this year met?

What did your business achieve?  It’s important to note all achievements, large or small. Something as impressive as having exceeded revenue targets, or something as apparently insignificant as keeping the website up to date.

How were those things achieved? You should think about all the strategies that you used. This will help you to learn what works well for you so you can use those strategies again in the future.

What did you fail to achieve? Did you set yourself goals at the beginning of the year that remain unmet? Why is that the case? When you know what has prevented you from meeting your goals you can learn how to avoid making those mistakes in the future.

What was your company’s greatest success this year? How did it achieve this success? What can you learn from this that can be applied to projects in the future?

Which were the biggest frustrations you faced? What went wrong for the business this year? How can those issues be avoided or mitigated next year? You may need some extra help with the elements of running your business and Corporate Business Solutions can assist with this.

Noting the Key Business Information for The Year

Once you’ve answered the questions above, it’s time to note the following key information for your business this year. When you have metrics that you compare year after year, you can quantify the impact that your hard work is having on your company’s overall success. Some of the metrics you should be recorded on an annual basis include:

  • How many customers did you have this year?
  • How many people visited your website?
  • How many people subscribed to your email?
  • How many new followers do you have on social media this year?
  • What was your company’s total revenue for the year?
  • What were your business’ total costs?
  • What were your profits this year?

Once you start noting this information down every year, you will be able to determine the differences between one year and the next. You’ll also be able to correlate your successes and failures with your differing business strategies. This will inform your business planning for the year to come.

A Guide to Business Planning for The Year to Come

2019 is almost at an end, and it’s time for business owners to start planning for their next calendar year. There’s no better opportunity to review your progress and your strategies to see how they can be honed and improved over the twelve months to come. This expert guide will help you to ensure you get the most out of your 2020 business planning.

Setting the Scene

The first step to effective annual business planning is to know what your company’s long-term goals are. Not just for the next few months or even years, but for the next decade and beyond. When you begin with your longer-term plans, you’ll be able to better connect the work you’re carrying out today with the impact that it will have on your business’ future, keeping you inspired and focused over the months to come. What must you achieve over the following year to move a step closer to those long-term goals? Break those goals down into smaller steps and start following them over the course of the next year.

Start Planning for Next Year

Once you know your overall business landscape you can begin to plan what you’re planning to achieve this year. It’s vital to decide what the focus of your operations will be in the short-term so you’ll be able to bring a few key projects to fruition rather than dividing your attention between countless half-finished projects. Once you’ve established annual goals, they need to be broken down into sections that can be reviewed on a quarterly basis. Knowing what you need to achieve in each quarter helps to give you sufficient time to keep momentum, make meaningful progress and adapt to changing situations.

Your Quarterly Business Plans

For each quarter, there are three areas that you need to consider to ensure that you set relevant milestones that will help you to move one step closer to your overall long-term goals.

  • Focus – what must you achieve by the quarter’s end? What research must be carried out and what must be learned to achieve this? Who can assist you with this? Could you benefit from using professional business analysis and consulting services such as those provided by CBS-CBS.com?
  • Revenue – what are your revenue targets over this quarter? Where will you gain this revenue from? How many customers are you going to need? Do you need to remove or add any revenue streams?
  • Marketing – what’s your marketing strategy for the next quarter? What is your target audience? Which platforms are you planning to use? How much of your time will you be devoted to this? Draw up your quarter-long marketing plan, divided into weeks and months. Make sure you’ve included all of the techniques and strategies that you’ve found helpful over the past year, and pre-empt anything which prevented you from achieving any of your goals over the last year.

Most of all, you need to believe in yourself. You can reach the goals that you set for yourself!

Ten Top Tips for Increasing Your Productivity

The key to making your business more successful is to improve your productivity. Achieving more in less time is the best way to ensure higher revenue and greater profits. However, while it might sound simple to say “be more productive”, it isn’t always easy to know how to achieve that goal. Here are ten expert tips that should help you get started.

  1. Plan to Check Your Emails

Rather than leaving your email notifications on 24/7, try switching them off. Constantly having to stop the task you’re working on to respond to a notification makes it difficult to concentrate and delays your progress. Instead, try to schedule certain times of the day when you’ll check your emails and reply to any which need a response.

  1. Plan Your Day to Suit Your Working Style

You know best what works for you, so plan your day around your individual working style. For example, if you’re more focused in the morning, plan to do the hardest tasks before lunch. When you plan your schedule around your energy cycles and personality you can get more done in the most efficient way.

  1. Try Batching

Batching is a great productivity technique that helps you to maximize your concentration by focusing on similar tasks at the same time. For example, if you’re writing a newsletter, why not write them for the next few months as well to save you time in the long-run. If you’re already in the flow, it makes sense to stick with the task in hand.

  1. Establish A Routine

If you do certain activities at a regular time, it removes the time-consuming decision-making process which is involved with determining what you should do next and when you should fit in specific tasks.

  1. Outsource to An Expert

You can hugely increase your productivity by outsourcing tasks that you find time-consuming to those who specialize in them. Not every business owner is an expert in every field, so it makes sense to use professionals who offer those services and who can carry them out to the highest level. For example, check out our Corporate Business Solutions reviews to find out how outsourcing to experts can be extremely helpful to small and medium-sized businesses.

  1. Stop Checking Your Phone

Evidence shows that we check our phone an average of thirty times during a standard working day. That means that you’re losing up to two and a half hours of every business day, not to mention interrupting your flow and disturbing your concentration on the task in hand. Put down your phone in a drawer and leave it until you hear it ring!

  1. Try The “Pomodoro” Method

The Pomodoro method involves setting an alarm and focusing on a single task until the alarm sounds. Plan 25 minutes for each task and focus on it until you hear the alarm go off. This helps you to avoid getting distracted by other things you need to do and helps you to stay productive. Take a five-minute break in between each 25-minute session.

  1. Lot Your Activities on A Timesheet

It might sound ridiculous, but if you log your activities on a timesheet over the course of a week, you’ll be surprised to see exactly how you’re using your time. Once you know what you’re actually doing, you can make an informed decision about where optimizations can be made.

  1. Harness the Power of Technology

There are lots of helpful apps, pieces of software and technological solutions that can save you time, effort and energy when running your business. Identify your pain points then find an appropriate technological solution to improve your productivity.

  1. Improve Your Processes

Take the time to write down all your processes and the way in which you carry out certain tasks. Are you tackling things in the best way? Are you doing more than you need to? Could you automate any step of the process? Once you’ve carried out a review, you can see where improvements can be made and action them.

Is Size Important or Not?

The importance of size obviously depends on the situation. For instance, a business benefits from having a larger customer base. In cases such as this, it’s important for a business to optimize the size of its assets.

One of the best ways to do this is to use analytics. Doing so helps businesses to see where improvements need to be made. The problem is that many businesses struggle to have the time and expertise to make the best use of analytics. If this applies to your business, you may find that getting help from Corporate Business Solutions Consultants is a good idea. Let’s take a closer look at why getting this type of help can be so important.

What is analytics?

Analytics has come to the forefront of the business world in recent years. It’s a field that makes use of data, IT, statistics and quantitative analysis in order to provide detailed information. This information is used by businesses in order to plan and strategize effectively.

Analytics can be applied in many different areas including customer relationship management, management of business finances, HR management and management of the supply chain.

Why is business analytics so important?

Considering the question of the size that was raised earlier in this article, you can start to see why analytics are so important to a business. For instance, how can your business understand the size of its customer base, or its revenue, if it does not have analytics in place? It’s important that your business has this information so that it can make decisions about improvements that need to be made.

The simple fact is that analytics can help your business grow the size of its share of the market and increase the number of customers that it has, and the resulting revenue. This means that your business can remain competitive and continue to grow. Obviously, these are important considerations for any business.

Different types of analytics

Most full analytics processes involve the use of three types of analytics; descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics.

Descriptive analytics

This is the part of the analytics process that deals with the interpretation of historical data. It provides a business with information about what has happened in the business up to that point.

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics involves using techniques such as machine learning and predictive modeling to analyze the current and past situation with the business in order to predict future situations.

Prescriptive analytics

This is the stage in business analytics which involves the use of predictive and descriptive analytics to help make informed decisions for the business. This is done using mathematical and computational sciences.

The answer to the question about whether the size is important or not is that it certainly can be. Businesses need to concentrate on the size of their revenue and market share in order to thrive. Using business analytics helps them to do this. If you want to ensure that you use analytics for your business, as effectively as possible, it may be a good idea to seek professional assistance.

 

Why Business Taxes Do Not Need to be Taxing

Taxes cause nightmares for many business owners. This is because they can be so complicated to understand. Completing taxes is also frustrating for many small business owners because it involves time spent away from other business-related activities.

If you are a small business owner who recognizes this situation, you may want to take a look at Corporate Business Solutions Reviews and find a professional who can help with your taxes. You may also want to take some time to get a better understanding of taxes yourself. Here is some basic information to get you started, and to help make completing your taxes less taxing.

Understanding business tax

Corporate or business tax is charged on the profits that a company makes. These taxes are due at different times of the year, depending on which type of tax is due. For instance, partnerships and S-corporations pay federal taxes which are due on March 15. In the case of Individual taxes and C-corporation taxes, they are due to be paid on April 15.

It’s possible to get a 6-month grace period which extends the deadline for these taxes. It’s also possible for taxes to be paid in installments, with an amount due every quarter.

Paying tax as a small business

It’s important to know that most small business owners pay tax at the personal tax rate, both personally and for the business. This is because around three-quarters of small businesses in the US are not corporations.

Another piece of information that small business owners should know is that they are entitled to a Qualified Business Income Deduction. This means that they are entitled to a 20% deduction of QBI which is the net amount of items of income, gain, deduction and loss that qualify.

Other taxes that a business needs to pay

There are other taxes that a business is responsible for paying. One of the main taxes is payroll tax which amounts to 7.65% of the gross payroll of a business. Other applicable taxes include:

  • Capital gains tax which is payable on business investments and the sale of assets.
  • Property tax which relates to buildings that are owned by the business.
  • Tax on dividends from business investments.

You can see that there are several different tax considerations that business owners need to be aware of.

The benefits of getting help with taxes

While getting a better understanding of taxes, is good for any business owner, it may still be a good idea to get help with taxes. This is because completing tax returns can take time away from other business activities.

It’s also worth remembering that accountants and tax professionals have high levels of experience and expertise. This means they can ensure that a business gets the benefits of any potential tax advantages.

If you are a small business owner, you should be able to see the advantage of this. You should also remember that the best way of making tax less taxing is to get an expert to help you with it.

What Do You Want, Do You Really, Really Want?

As the owner of a small to medium business, it can be tempting to try and do everything in -house. In fact, many small business owners take it one step further and try to complete many tasks themselves.

The problem with this is that no-one can be an expert in every aspect of running a business. There is also a chance that tasks will not be completed effectively when a business tries to do everything itself. This is why it often makes sense to seek professional help with

CBS-CBS.com. Doing so can help a business get the expert assistance it needs when dealing with complex issues such as analytics or tax issues.

Knowing what help you want

If you are running a business, and decide that seeking professional assistance is a good idea, you need to understand what help you want. In order to get this understanding, you need to examine your current business structure. This helps you to determine what expertise you have in-house.

You also need to be critical about which areas of the business are not being addressed as they should. For instance, you may not be making the most of tax opportunities. You may also be missing out on marketing opportunities because you are not paying enough attention to your analytics. There are many areas where seeking professional expertise can be useful for a business. Here are three of them.

Tax and accountancy

Tax rules can be complicated for business owners to understand. This means that they serve as a distraction from other business-related tasks such as creating a marketing strategy.

Likewise, business finance decisions can also be complicated and difficult to negotiate. This is why working with a partner that can provide accountancy services is a good way of optimizing your tax position and ensuring that your business finances are managed efficiently.

Analytics

No business can operate to its full potential, without measuring its performance. There is usually an array of data that businesses can use to inform their operational decisions. The problem is that not all businesses have personnel who have the time and/or knowledge to use analytics effectively.

If this applies to your business, it’s a good idea to work with professionals who can provide you with analytics solutions. This is because you get accurate and transparent information that you need in order to make the best decisions for your business.

Human resources

This is actually one of the most important aspects of running a business. However, it’s also one that is often neglected. This is because business owners and managers tend to concentrate their efforts on the numbers when it comes to productivity and profits.

However, without a good HR system in place, it’s impossible to manage one of the most important resources of a business; its workforce. This is why many businesses work with professional partners in order to get the HR solution that they need.

You can see why you should stop and think about what assistance you need to make your business run more efficiently. Then you need to find a reliable and reputable partner to provide this assistance.

Improving the Fortunes of Your Business – What You Should Know

Any business owner wants to optimize the fortunes of its operations. In order to do this, they need to monitor different aspects of the business and ensure that they are working to their full potential.

It’s important that this is done effectively as many businesses fail because analysis and improvements are not carried out. Around 50% of small businesses in the US fail within the first 5-years. Many business owners choose to enlist help from Corporate Business Solutions, in order to ensure that their business performance is optimized. There are three main areas where this help can be useful.

Focusing on people

People are the most important asset of any business. The people who work for business help to determine the level of customer satisfaction. They are also responsible for the productivity of a business.

If there is a disconnect between the goals of the business and the actions of employees, this can have an adverse effect on the overall performance of the business. It’s important to reduce the risk of this happening by ensuring that employees are motivated and onboard with the aims of the business.

Examining the brand

Businesses build a brand in order to attract custom and improve sales and profits. This brand should obviously have positive connotations and should reflect the aims and services of the business. However, creating a brand is not the end of the story.

A business brand can start to fail if it’s not analyzed and monitored efficiently. For instance, the attraction of the brand may wane. There could also be an issue with production being able to meet the demands of the brand. These are issues that need to be identified and addressed as soon as possible, in order to improve the fortunes of the business.

Analyzing the performance of operations

If the wheels of a business are not working as well as they should, the fortunes of a business cannot be improved. This is why operational excellence is so important to the overall success of a business.

In order to achieve operational excellence, businesses need to analyze how their processes are performing on an ongoing basis. They then need to use the information that is gathered in order to make beneficial operational improvements.

In summary

No business owner can afford to allow their business to become stagnant. If this happens, the business begins to fail and profits fall. In order to stop this from happening, it’s important to take action to improve the fortunes of a business.

Business owners can enlist professional help in order to do this. Doing so means that they can analyze the effectiveness of vital features of the business such as people, the brand and operational performance. They can then use the information that they gain to make necessary improvements. These improvements can have a positive effect on the fortunes of a business. This gives it a better chance of surviving and thriving.

Why Good Succession Planning is Essential for Your Business

In order for a business to continue being successful, it needs to be prepared for any future gaps in personnel. This applies from ground level to senior management. To have this level of preparation, effective succession planning needs to take place.

This planning helps a business to establish vacancies that may occur. They can then make decisions about how to fill these vacancies. This involves planning aspects such as identifying internal skills and potential, training and external recruitment requirements. Businesses can make use of Corporate Business Solutions Consultants to help with this planning, which provides several vital benefits.

Identifying potential within the business

Succession planning enables a business to identify potential talent within. It helps a business to determine who are the future leaders within the workforce. These people can then be developed with a view to filling gaps that are likely to occur, higher up the ladder.

Making important savings

It’s a lot more expensive to recruit externally than it is to train and support gifted people that are already employed within the business. This means that succession planning helps to save money which the business can allocate to meet other essential expenses.

Identifying potential future weaknesses

While succession planning is a useful tool for identifying potential talent and training requirements; it also has another important role in business planning. It can help to identify future potential weaknesses in the business.

It does this by predicting the loss of essential personnel. For instance, the head of sales could be looking to move on. If this happened, and there was a delay in filling the role, there could be a negative impact on sales. Having this information in advance enables a business to mitigate the potential risks. This helps to preserve the performance and profits of a business.

Establishing if there is a competency gap

Succession planning is not just about filling gaps that may be created by vacancies. It’s also about establishing if there is a gap in competencies required for the current and ongoing success of the business.

For instance, there may be a lack of knowledge at ground level that will enable people to progress to a higher level in the business. There may also be a lack of awareness of skills and expertise that will be needed to meet technical or industry developments.

Identifying these competency gaps means that a business can act accordingly. It can ensure that the gaps are addressed so that the business continues to operate successfully.

In summary

Effective succession planning is a vital tool for any business that wants to maintain its level of success. It enables the business to ensure that any potential personnel or skills gaps are identified and addressed.

This type of planning can help a business to save money by ensuring that it makes the best use of its current workforce. Members of this workforce can be trained and developed so that the business becomes self-sufficient in filling vacancies and does not have the expense of external recruitment.

Help – You Need Somebody

Owning and running a business can be an exhilarating experience. However, it also comes with many challenges, one of which is recognizing potential problems. As a business owner, who is invested in wanting their business to succeed, it’s easy to miss signs that your business is not doing as well as it should.

The problem with this is that issues can get out of hand if they are not dealt with. This is why it’s so important for you to recognize that your business has problems to solve and get the help that you need from experts like the team at CBS-CBS.com. So how do you know when your business needs help, what assistance can you get and how can it benefit your business?

How to tell if you need help

It’s easy to become complacent when you are running a business, but this is a trap that you should attempt to avoid. There are some signs that you should look out for which might indicate that there is a problem including:

  • A lack of customer interest. If your customer base is stagnant this is likely to lead to a decrease in sales and profits. It can also affect your marketing is word of mouth recommendations are likely to decrease.
  • Mistakes have not been rectified. You can tell if mistakes are being repeated by using business analytics and by paying attention to customer feedback. If you identify this type of repetition, it may mean that you need assistance with improving your business processes.
  • Employees leave on a regular basis. A high level of staff turnover is a sure sign that there are issues with the business that you may need assistance to resolve.
  • Bills and other payments are not being addressed on time. This is an obvious sign that the cash flow of the business is not as it should be and that changes need to be made.
  • There is no innovation in the business. When a business fails to innovate, it’s likely to fall behind its competitors. This is why you may need help from experts if your business practices have not changed over the years.

What expert help can you get?

If you notice signs that your business is having problems, it’s often a good idea to seek help from experts who can give you an unbiased view of the current state of your business, as well as providing you with advice and support.

The help that you can get includes:

  • Data collection and analysis.
  • Customer satisfaction analysis.
  • Business and financial reporting support.
  • Business strategy and planning support.

How this help can be beneficial

The most obvious advantage of getting professional help to resolve business issues is that this assistance is independent and is therefore not hampered by pre-existing assumptions.

This advantage leads to others that can result from the information and advice that is provided, including improved employee satisfaction and retention, enhanced customer engagement and improved strategic planning.

Help is not something that a business owner should be ashamed of asking for. It should always be seen as an effective business tool that can help to improve practices and increase profits.