| Uma Bharti attacks Reliance Fresh store in Bhopal
Bhopal, Nov 23 (ANI): Bharatiya Janshakti Party Chief Uma Bharati led a protest rally here that attacked a Reliance Fresh shop in protest against the entry of multinational and corporate retail chains in the country. Uma said such entities would wipe away the livelihoods of millions of small retailers and allied businesses. "Do you know one person of this family has gifted his wife a jet costing 300 crore. If he had bought it with the money earned through noble work or hard work, we would have been proud of him, but if he does it by crushing the livelihood of small retailers, it is very shameful," Bharti said. The opening up of the fragmented retail industry, which is dominated by family-run shops, has triggered opposition from some political parties and retail traders, who fear massive job losses.
For small businesses, discounts are sweet
In downtown Paso Robles, small businesses planned a later start Friday to the beginning of their holiday shopping season. The Main Street Association's holiday lighting ceremony, held Friday evening, lured families downtown with hot chocolate, cookies, caroling and an appearance by Mrs. Santa Claus. Some businesses there planned to push their shopping promotions into the weekend. Powell's Sweet Shoppe, celebrating its grand opening, plans to give free Wonka Bars to the first 1,000 people in the store today. Owner Steve Goodwin said the store, which includes a variety of sweets and toys, offers something for the whole family, including candies from the past and youngsters' latest favorites. At Tom's Toys in San Luis Obispo, manager Mike Sothcott said business had been steady the three days before Thanksgiving after the toy store ran an advertisement promoting special discounts.
Web Winners |
There are only a few more weeks to take action to limit your business and personal tax bills for the year. Here are some Web sites to help sort your credits and deductions. Options estimator. The SmartMoney tax guide has a couple of simple tax tools for us corporate titans - a couple of stock option tax estimators, for example. Of course, they are not much use while your company's stock is in the tank. But, hey, the year is not over yet. There is advice on how to deduct business travel, even if some of your business trip is for fun, and an explanation for when to engage in year-end dumping of loser stocks. www.smartmoney.com/tax/ Small business. Words of advice for small-business owners on ways to cut the tax bill in the final weeks of the year include opening retirement accounts, making charitable gifts, and even making small deductible gifts to "legitimate business associates." This is the Web site of the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbyist group.
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