I recently met with a potential client yesterday; this client which of course will remain nameless had two very large life insurance policies (amounts I will not disclose). My goal for the meeting was to illustrate to him how he can still obtain the same amount of insurance he currently has and pay less in policy premiums. His response to my illustration was what would happen to the payments that I have made for over 15 years. Now, its not important for me to write word by word the whole conversation me and client had, but what I want to point out is, there are some individuals that believe that their insurance payments are a form of investments and that if I exchange one policy for another I’m going to lose the amount that I invested in the policy; another fallacy is how long will it take me to rebuild my savings with this policy? Well insurance is to help and assist you with risk, Life insurance is to help, manage and protect your love ones from risk that may occur in the event of your death. So my goal to any client or potential client; what was the goal when you purchase this policy, is it to pay any expenses at the time of death, create a legacy your love ones, or to assist you with your with Estate planning goals; now those are just some examples on how life insurance can help you manage risk. My goal with this writing is not to put down any type of life insurance product, I’m an advocate that Term, Whole Life, Universal Life and Variable Life have their place, but my goal is to always find out what do you want to accomplish by purchasing Life insurance.
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As always,
Be empowered!
-Katrina
Challenging your current Mindset regarding "WEALTH and Money"
I want to challenge your current idea of Wealth and money by offering that they are not the same thing. Where money is a tool used to exchange servicesor goods or a way we move wealth around, idea of wealth is asintangible as love and hate. It involves our perception of life and in essence the freedom we desireto have within our lives. For many of us that includes possessions thatmake living life easier (a workable car, a nice clean home, ability totravel, good health, healthy children, technology, the internet, ipods,etc) Wealth can take different forms for different people example,Some sections of this country and other countries create entire -microeconomies by living off a barter system. People simply barter wealthwith each other and don’t use money. They live what they perceive astotally wealthy lives and are able to pass that wealth down to theirchildren.
Alone money isn’t valuable. Money is only valuable when it can be attached
tosomething that is perceived to be valuable to the other person. Moneymakes it easy to trade wealth as it creates a even playing field toexchange wealth - If I need surgery, I cannot offer a doctor something Ifind wealthy in exchange for his work, but if I gave him money, thatwas equal in value, he could take that money and exchange it forsomething he finds valuable and wealthy for him (a Bentley perhaps? )Because we can trade wealth by using money we begin to define wealth asbeing able to make as much money as possible.
Why do some businesses succeed and others fail ? How are some of us able to
create $100 mill corporations, and live a life of “wealth” that we pass on to our children. How is that making money is very easy to do but keeping it and using it in a way to build wealth is very difficult for some?
Want to see section 2 : "Your are NOT in Business to Make money" Register here!
Today I wrote on my website about the current TAX AMNESTY program taking place in Washington, DC and how residents there can take advantage of it. Not sure what a Tax Amnesty is? Basically it's when your states department of revenue either reduces or completely eliminates penalties and fines incurred when you failed to file and pay your taxes. States do this as a way to bring citizens in compliance as well as to raise revenue (DC expects to raise $20 million from their program)
How do they raise money? Simple, oftentimes what may stop you from paying taxes once you realize you owe is the penalties and fines imposed and the high cost of hiring a tax firm to help negotiate a lower rate is a hefty expense as well. The government has to spend money hiring auditors, initiating garnishments, and the sort. When many states are faced with tight budgets and low revenues, offering a Tax Amnesty to abate outstanding tax penalties is the answer they need.
Check out the full article here and while you're there, join our Small business community, or check out our latest Live Broadcast Video archive.
As always, Be Empowered,
-Katrina
Wouldn’t it be great to turn your fun trips into tax cuts? If you plan to take any trips this summer, here are some ideas that will help you get the most out of your travel budget.
1. Make all your business appointments before you leave for your trip.
Most people believe that they can go on vacation and simply hand out their business cards in order to make the trip deductible. Wrong.
You must have at least one business appointment before you leave in order to establish the "prior set business purpose" required by the IRS.
The first thing that you need to do is set up appointments in the various cities that you will visit before you leave. One way to establish this is to post an ad for distributors in the town’s newspaper. You could then interview those who respond when you get to the business destination.
2. Make It All "Business Travel."
In order to deduct all on-the-road business expenses, you must be traveling on business. By definition, you are on business travel whenever you are sleeping overnight in a strange bed - conducting business, that is!
3. Make sure that you deduct all of your on-the-road -expenses for each day you're away.
For every day you are on business travel, you can deduct 100% of lodging, tips, shoe-shines, laundry and dry cleaning, car rentals, and 50% of your food. According to the IRS, no receipts are required for any travel expense under $75 per expense. The only exception would be for lodging.
4. Sandwich weekends between business days.
Interestingly, the IRS notes that if you have a business day on Friday and another one on Monday, you can deduct all on-the-road expenses during the weekend.
5.Make the majority of your trip days business days.
The IRS says that you can deduct transportation expenses if business was the primary purpose of the trip. The majority of the days in the trip must be for business activities. Otherwise, you cannot make any transportation deductions. This is an all-or-nothing proposition.
With proper planning, you can deduct most of your vacations if you combine them with business. That can make your life a lot less taxing!
To learn more about tax strategies for small business owners, sign up for my newsletter at www.tbsusa.com.
Listen to Author, Speaker and Business Success Coach Ron Mueller-Home Business Tax Expert on "Why Everyone needs a Home Business as a back up plan". Why having your own Home Business provides the most TAX SAVINGS and PROTECTION "Bar-None"-It's a "No Brainer" the call will begin shortly after the introducing of everyone coming on the line.
http://www.byoaudio.com/play/WcWJzKms
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