| 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.
Intuit to buy Homestead Technologies
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) - Software developer Intuit Inc. (Nachrichten) said Monday it will buy Homestead Technologies Inc., a privately held maker of Web site development software, in a deal it valued at $170 million. Intuit, which makes Quicken, TurboTax and small business accounting software QuickBooks, said the deal will add Web site creation and e-commerce software to its product mix. 'This acquisition supports our growth strategy in small business by addressing an underserved need, and continues Intuit's move beyond financial management solutions into helping small businesses solve other important problems,' Brad Smith, senior vice president of Intuit's small business group, said in a statement. Homestead will become part of the small business group following the acquisition.
Asylum-seekers kept under close guard
SIXTEEN Indonesian asylum-seekers, including 10 children, spent their first day in Australia under close guard as immigration officials brought them DVD players, clothing, and nappies for the baby girl in the group. The three families from the island of Roti, the base for an illegal shark-fin trade off western Timor, are living in three duplex units in a cluster of Christmas Island homes known as Drumsite, about 1km from the lively Chinese quarter of Poon San, where residents of the suburb's apartment blocks are known for their love of card games and karaoke. They are the island's first illegal arrivals since February, but will not be joining Vietnamese brothers Joseph and Joe in the island's detention centre. This is because families with children have been held in community detention, not detention centres, since June 2005.
Business owners say they get a lot from chamber membership
Last week was testimonial time for Mooresville Chamber of Commerce members. The room was packed at the Mooresville Consolidated School Corp. Education Center, but chamber president Mark Chester gave every person a minute or so to speak his peace. Chester said it is a new tradition of the Mooresville chamber to use one of its monthly meetings as an informational meeting on new business members - and those who have been around for a while. Chester said the last time it was done, people asked for it again. He believes it is encouraging to newer entrepreneurs to hear the success stories of veteran business owners and chamber members. It was hard for most people to stay within the one-minute limit - many of them laughingly turned their backs on the little stop sign that chamber treasurer Angela Kath held up.
News in brief
Here are a selection of brief news items from this week's paper edition, and possibly a few news briefs that didn't make it in the paper. Lasagna dinner to help HHS show choirThe Holmen High School show choir program will hold a lasagna dinner fundraiser from 4 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1, at Holmen American Legion.Cost is $7.50 in advance or $8 the day of the event, with children 10 and younger eating for $4. The event also will feature door prizes and a silent auction.For advance tickets or more information, call 526-3372. Clearwater Farm offers Fraser firs for holidaysFor the fifth time, Clearwater Farm is selling fresh-cut, locally grown Christmas trees.Tree sale dates are planned for three Saturdays � Nov. 24, Dec. 1 and Dec. 8 � from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the farm, which is on Greens Coulee Road not quite a mile north of Main Street in Onalaska.
Hot stuff
What do a lawyer, CPA and international banker have in common? Apparently, the financial know-how and business acumen to operate a private-equity firm that wants to acquire and operate small, successful manufacturing companies. This is how Ray Lund, the banker, became president and CEO of Thermex-Thermatron Products Inc., a Louisville company that engineers, manufactures, sells and services industrial radio-frequency and microwave heating equipment. CPA Jack Hans and attorney David Lesser founded the private-equity firm Dyad Partners in the mid-1990s and asked Lund to join as a principal in 2004. All three previously worked for Riggs Bank in the Washington, D.C., area. Hans now lives in Roanoke, Va., Lesser in Bethesda, Md. The firm seeks to buy companies with solid management teams and owners who are retiring, Lund said.
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