Report Employee Wages Online

This is a short podcast that is intended to help small Florida business owners with utilizing a free tool from the Social Security Administration (SSA). Florida business owners can use this tool to record employee wages – eliminating the need for paperwork.

Ron Johnson of the Small Business Administration interviews Chuck Liptz from the SSA.

Highlights from the podcast interview:

Ron Johnson: I understand there is a way to file W-2s
online. How does this work?

Chuck Liptz: Actually, there are two different ways to do
it. If you have a software package that puts your W-2s in the
format that Social Security can read, then you can go to our
website www.ssa.gov/employer and use what is known as Business Services Online and you can upload your W-2 files straight to us for free.

The other way is a free product that we have called W-2
Online. It is the same website at www.ssa.gov/employer. And
what you can do is the W-2 Online actually looks like a W-2
form, then you would be able to key the information in just as
you would type it in on a W-2 or handwrite it but you do it
right on our website. You can also generate the piece of
paper, W-2s, to give to your employees but you would not need
to send those papers to Social Security. You can just press a
button and send it to us electronically. It is all free.

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On-line Reporting of Employee Wages

Featuring Chuck Liptz, Director for Employer Wage Reporting and
Relations for the Social Security Administration.

The Social Security Administration has a free on-line tool to help
small businesses simplify reporting employee wages. Learn more about
filing W-2s on-line.

( Transcript)

Does your Florida business use any online tools you’d like to share to help other Florida business owners accomplish activities that previously used to be paper-based? Or, maybe these services never existed before the advent of the internet and now your life has been simplified? Please share in the comments below…

Small Business Tax Preparedness

This is a short podcast (audio) to help small Florida businesses get ready for preparing business taxes and to hopefully take some of the anxiety out of the experience.

Ron Johnson from the Small Business Administration talks with Thomas Ochsenschlager, the VP of Taxation for the AICPA.

Highlights from the podcast:

Ron Johnson: Tom, what are some of the things a small
business owner can do to get their small businesses ready for
tax season?

Thomas Ochsenschlager: Well, I guess the no-brainer is to
get your books and records in order. You certainly do not want
to be paying a professional to be sifting through a whole bunch
of books and records you have in a shoebox or something. And
you should be doing that all year round, not just when tax time
comes around. The problem here, of course, is that small
business people are in the business of whatever business they
are in and a lot of times getting their own books and records in
order is something they put in kind of the backburner because
they are more interested in making money in their day-to-day
activities. So it is something they need to have in the front
of their mind as they go through the year.

*************************

Ron Johnson: How about home-based businesses? What are
some of the unique deductions or taxes pertaining to home-based businesses?

Thomas Ochsenschlager: This gets a little tricky, Ron, but
if you perform the essential functions of your business in your
home, so let’s say you bill all your clients out of your house,
and in the end this is really important here, you have a place
in the house that is dedicated to the business. The IRS takes a
dim view if you do this in your family room and also have a TV
there where you watch the Super Bowl or something.

*************************

– this conversation is finished on the podcast.

Getting Your Small Business Ready for Tax Season

Excellent suggestions for helping small Florida business owners prepare taxes. Covered are topics such as home-based offices – and deductions, typical startup costs for new businesses and more.

( Transcript)

If you have any tax tips for small Florida businesses that you want to share with other Florida business owners and readers of this site, please put them in the comments below. Thanks!

Computer Viruses and Your Florida Business

Computer viruses spread with the speed of lightening these days. Recently a new virus was found to have attacked nearly 100,000  computers in a couple thousand businesses across the globe – including Florida businesses.

This virus does more than cause erratic behavior on your computer if you happen to have it. The “Kneber botnet,” as it’s known, collects login user name and passwords to financial systems, social networking sites like FaceBook and Twitter, as well as email accounts.

Creators of the virus use the stolen information to get into accounts, steal more information and copy personal identities.

Small businesses are especially at risk for computer viruses because usually they are relatively unprotected, and, there isn’t a strict computer policy at most small companies which would eliminate much of what circulates online.

Keeping your Norton, McAfee, or other antivirus programs up to date is crucial. Something else you might mandate for your Florida business is the elimination of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser which is the most targeted piece of software by hackers. Switch to Mozilla’s FireFox, Google’s Chrome, or even OPERA browsers to have less problems than IE.

Most nasty viruses come through email – so ensure your virus scanner checks all emails as they come in.

Ensure nobody in your organization clicks on files on their desktop that look suspicious – this too is another way viruses spread – they drop a file on your desktop that you’re dying to know – what’s in it?

Don’t be fooled – and take your computer security very seriously.

Oh, I almost forgot… are you running Windows XP Pro with service pack 2? That’s the operating system this virus primarily attacks.

Still like XP?