IntraScope Accounting Solutions, LLC

 

 

May 2003 Edition

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MANAGEMENT

Core values are those few, essential and enduring beliefs that guide your company, behavior and relationships.  You keep your core values no matter what – even if there is a heavy price to pay for holding on to them.  Most leaders know these core values but may not have written them down or communicated them to their employees.  Knowing and embracing your company’s core values, will ensure both you and your employees remain true to your original vision of how your company does business.  This is what sets you apart from your competitors and keeps your customers coming back for more.

 

 

TAX TIP

What is the best way to deduct automobile expenses?  The easiest approach is to keep track of your business mileage and write off .36 cents per mile.  However, the more advantageous approach is to write off the actual expenses and depreciate the car.  You can deduct the business portion of all of your automobile expenses including gasoline, repairs, license plate renewal, tires, insurance, carwashes, etc.  Of course, you must keep a mileage log that documents your business mileage so we can compute the business use of your car at the end of the year.  If you are incorporated or have an LLC, the advantage of having a company owned automobile is a great tax benefit to the owners.

 

 

FINANCIAL

How can you increase profits if you can’t raise prices?  There is a new era of pricing strategy coming that uses software, mathematics and experimentation.  Most companies set their prices in one of three ways:  Cost-plus, “my competitor is charging this price” and a “gut” price not based upon measurable criteria.  Companies try to set prices at the level the market will bear but they don’t measure what the market will bear.  Progressive companies are in the market using software to tell them where the price points are.  They are experimenting in the market place offering different prices for the same product and finding where volume and pricing creates the biggest impact to profitability.  This is not guess work but scientific deduction based upon consumer behavior. 

 

 

 

DID YOU KNOW…..

 

There has been a lot of discussion about the new tax cuts benefiting the rich.  Just who are “the rich” of America?  They are the top 10% of taxpayers reporting joint or single incomes of $92,114 or greater.

 

Only 2 countries in the world fully double tax dividends – USA and Burma.

 

The elderly report 50% of dividend income.