Small Businesses Face Double-Edged Sword in Deciding to Put Contractors on Payroll By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN And EMILY MALTBY An Internal Revenue Service crackdown on employers who improperly use independent contractors could force many small-business owners to make tough choices: Staff up and raise operating costs, or risk an audit that could have pricey penalties. Under an agency program unveiled last week, business owners can reclassify contractors as employees and make only a small payment to cover past payroll taxes. The IRS expects most applicants to be smaller firms, because they tend to have looser structures and fewer personnel. Along [ Read More ]
By Joshua Burd |NJBN Closely watched bills that would reshape the state’s business and development incentives will have to wait until at least early May, their two top sponsors said today, as lawmakers fine-tune the measures while getting through several weeks of budget hearings. But the sponsors, Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Newark) and Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), both said they remain confident about the future of the legislation, with the effort garnering broad support and two related bills clearing their respective committees earlier this week. Support for the plan was plain to see last week, when top state officials — including [ Read More ]
By: Beverly Macy | Co-founder and CEO, Gravity Summit LLC Can you believe we’ve just sailed past the first half of 2012? Social media continues to make inroads into our business lives and is finally being taken seriously by business leaders in most industries from entertainment to healthcare to financial services to non-profits and beyond. Here’s 3 Big Trends to Watch for the Next 6 Months: 1. Social Goes Visual From Pinterest to Instagram and more, social has gone visual. The way that news and information is organized and distributed has gone visual. Curating and social sharing of content visually [ Read More ]
By: Mark Gongloff | Huffington Post The unfolding PFGBest debacle looks like the MF Global debacle in a lot of ways, including missing customer funds held in a JPMorgan Chase account. JPMorgan has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case — and probably won’t be. But this is another problem to add to the biggest U.S. bank’s long and growing list of problems, from its London Whale losses to its involvement in the Libor scandal. PFGBest, a brokerage firm based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Monday froze its client accounts and disclosed that its founder had been hospitalized [ Read More ]
Originally Posted on Huffington Post By: Bonnie Kavoussi | bonnie.kavoussi@huffingtonpost.com Young people are getting left behind. High unemployment is hurting many young people as they languish without developing job skills. The United States added just 80,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported on Friday: This amount is less than half of what would be needed for the economy to recover in a timely fashion, according to economists. Older people are benefiting the most from the economic recovery, as they are snatching up a disproportionate share of the new jobs created, some economists say. Workers older than 55 have taken [ Read More ]
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ 07/01/12 08:52 PM ET AP NEW YORK — Who knew the calendar could cause so much vacation heartburn? For the first time in five years Independence Day falls on a Wednesday, leaving travelers unsure when to celebrate and worrying those who make a living off tourists. “The midweek holiday seems to have travelers confused,” said Anthony Del Gaudio, vice president of hotel sales for Loews Hotels, which isn’t seeing the normal July Fourth spike in bookings. Those who sell vacations say this year’s calendar gives Americans more options: Tack on Saturday through Tuesday or Thursday through Sunday [ Read More ]
SunTrust Banks, one of the nation’s largest financial services providers, plans to “vigorously defend” itself against a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a federal agency in a Florida court last week. The suit alleges that a branch manager in Sarasota subjected female employees to “unwelcome, sexually graphic and vulgar sexual harassment” over three years. Court filings from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission describe an escalating pattern of “sexually offensive comments and conduct” that continued for years despite multiple complaints by employees, who were later fired or left their jobs. The alleged perpetrator, however, still works for SunTrust. He was recently [ Read More ]
By: APP.com | Jan 25th, 2012 J.C. Penney is permanently marking down all of its merchandise by at least 40 percent so shoppers no longer have to wait for sales to get bargains. Penney said Wednesday that it is getting rid of the hundreds of sales it offers each year in favor of a simpler approach to pricing. Starting on Feb. 1, the retailer is rolling out an “Every Day” pricing strategy with much fewer sales throughout the year. The plan, the first major move by Apple executive Ron Johnson since he became Penney’s CEO in November, is different from [ Read More ]
By: APP.com 8:07 PM, Dec. 23, 2011 WASHINGTON — Consumer spending and incomes barely rose last month. Business investment has slowed. New-home sales remain dismal. Despite all that, some economists say a brightening job market is lifting their hopes for 2012. More aggressive hiring, the thinking goes, would fuel enough spending to boost the economy. Economists point to another drop reported this week in applications for unemployment benefits, the third straight decline. Applications are now at their lowest level since April 2008. The trend is signaling that layoffs have all but stalled and that employers may be ready to step [ Read More ]
