http://www.financealley.com en-us editorial@financealley.com The word has come down from on high. You’ve been charged with putting together a promotional campaign for your organization. Here are some tips on creating a successful effort. The first step in any campaign is also one that is often passed over. Si... http://www.financealley.com/article_598716_15.html 14th August 2008 It is amazing how often a massive marketing opportunity presents itself to a business niche and nobody does anything about it. This brings up the issue of staying on the ball with your marketing and waking up to the possibilities all around you. If yo... http://www.financealley.com/article_589810_15.html 24th July 2008 Sometimes, the old methods are still the best way to go when it comes to building a business. In an ever competitive business world, this can often mean using promotional items to entice potential customers to become definite customers. The problem, of co... http://www.financealley.com/article_589809_15.html 24th July 2008 It has long been standard practice to give people more than they expect in the form of promotional items. The problem, of course, is most people have seen the run of the mill things. This means you need to go beyond the norm to have your items make an imp... http://www.financealley.com/article_483898_64.html 29th February 2008 January starts off with a blissful anticipation of a glorious new year. It quickly turns into a panic as you try to get your finances in order so you can issue 1099-MISC tax forms. Ah, but who do you have issue them to? The 1099-MISC tax form is an inf... http://www.financealley.com/article_458429_19.html 23rd January 2008 The turning of the new year is a time for a new beginning. Unfortunately, January is also the time when the tax season begins in earnest. 1099-MISC filings are on of the first things that come up. 1099 tax forms are known as information reporting form... http://www.financealley.com/article_458424_19.html 23rd January 2008 You may wonder how the IRS tracks the movement of money so that it knows who owes how much. Well, there are a number of ways and information returns are one of the key ones. What are information reporting returns? They are tax forms the IRS requires y... http://www.financealley.com/article_457862_19.html 22nd January 2008 It happens every year. You forget to file some tax form and get into a panic trying to find the correct form, fill it out and slam it into the mail before the relevant deadline. This madness may be coming to an end. The efforts of the IRS to update its... http://www.financealley.com/article_456445_19.html 21st January 2008 As an employer, you are responsible for a bevy of red tape when it comes to your employees. Making things even better, the rules and regulations regarding that red tape gets changed a bit each year. In 2008, one of the base line employment tax standar... http://www.financealley.com/article_456443_19.html 21st January 2008 As we all know by watching the news, the real estate market is pulling back hard from the days of glory earlier this decade. In fact, many people are losing their homes to foreclosure. Few realize the tax consequences of losing one’s home. The Inter... http://www.financealley.com/article_205099_33.html 22nd August 2007 Every company knows, to a certain extent, that promotional items are one of the best ways to advertise their product or service – but, do unusual promotional products work better than the average item? There are a certain set of promotional items tha... http://www.financealley.com/article_171542_15.html 07th June 2007 We have all seen the little things that some companies give out to their customers and prospective customers – pens, and other small items – but what is a promotional item and what can it do? To answer the question, what is a promotional item, you ... http://www.financealley.com/article_171541_15.html 07th June 2007 Promotional products are a good way to get customers to notice you – and can be as simple as a piece of candy or other small object – but here's why custom promotional products are best. Not all promo items are personalized. Some companies, particu... http://www.financealley.com/article_171540_15.html 07th June 2007 Even if you can define what corporate gifts are – you may have even more trouble answering the following question: how to use corporate gifts to your company's best advantage. Corporate gifts are broadly recognized as anything given out by a company ... http://www.financealley.com/article_171539_15.html 07th June 2007 You may already know that promotional items are an important part of advertising your company and getting the word out, but what are corporate gifts and how do they help promote your company? Corporate gifts differ from promotional items primarily in t... http://www.financealley.com/article_171538_15.html 07th June 2007 There are a few basic staples of promotional items – pens, pencils, notepads – but how to pick promotional for your business that will really stand out among the rest is another matter. One of the most important things to remember when thinking abo... http://www.financealley.com/article_171537_15.html 07th June 2007 It is easy to see the value of promotional items for the business providing them – advertising, and keeping touch with a customer base – but what about giving your customers value through promotional gifts? The first way of giving your customers va... http://www.financealley.com/article_171536_15.html 07th June 2007 While most people will have received a promotional item at one point in their careers, the question of what exactly are promotional items can be a bit trickier – as they can be almost any business item. The basic definition or answer to the question ... http://www.financealley.com/article_171533_15.html 07th June 2007 Finding that your customer base is shrinking, or that your sales might not be as high as they should this time of year can be tough – so it is a great idea to help your sales with promotional products. One way to help your sales with promotional prod... http://www.financealley.com/article_171531_15.html 07th June 2007 We all know that one of the most important parts of advertising is getting your name out to prospective customers – but why use product promotions for that purpose instead of a different method? Product promotions offer a different way to get your na... http://www.financealley.com/article_171530_15.html 07th June 2007 Branding is the rather subtle art of getting your business name out in front of the buying public. Branding with promotional products is an excellent way to achieve this goal. Promotional products are great marketing tools for nearly every business. T... http://www.financealley.com/article_160487_15.html 16th May 2007 Drip marketing is one of the greatest forms of marketing around today. Marketing to a captive prospect database always leads to sales, particularly if you use promotional items. Let’s be brutally honest. Getting new customers or clients is incredibl... http://www.financealley.com/article_160486_15.html 16th May 2007 As a business, you are always looking for that edge to push sales figures up. A time-tested and effective method of getting the edge is to use promotional products. To understand the value of promotional products, we have to look at late night televis... http://www.financealley.com/article_160485_15.html 16th May 2007 Scam artists are really pushing the envelope these days on the web. The IRS is warning taxpayers that fake IRS websites have been set up in an effort to trick people into providing information that can be used for identity theft. The variety and numbe... http://www.financealley.com/article_138101_19.html 14th March 2007 For all the complaining about taxes, it is rather amazing that taxpayers leave so much money on the table each year. The IRS recently announced that 2.2 billion dollars in refunds are about to expire unclaimed. April 17, 2007 represents Christmas for ... http://www.financealley.com/article_137033_19.html 12th March 2007 If you are a US citizen, it is important to know that you must report the presence of any foreign financial accounts you have per IRS rules and regulations. In the past, the idea of a foreign financial account carried a certain wink factor. The wink, ... http://www.financealley.com/article_137032_19.html 12th March 2007 As April 15th draws ever closer, many taxpayers are starting to actively hunt for tax deductions to lower their bill to Uncle Sam. Here are a few that many people miss out on. The real estate market has obviously been on steroids for much of this deca... http://www.financealley.com/article_135275_19.html 06th March 2007 The trick to minimizing your tax pain is to reduce your gross income as much as possible. Tax credits are one of the more powerful tools for doing this. When compared head to head, a tax credit is often far more valuable than a tax deduction. Why? Wel... http://www.financealley.com/article_135274_19.html 06th March 2007 Every year, the IRS issues a list of the top tax scams the agency is seeing. Known as the “dirty dozen”, here are some highlights of the 2007 list. 1. Telephone Tax Refund – This one has the IRS hot and bothered. For the first time in recent mem... http://www.financealley.com/article_131376_19.html 21st February 2007 If you participate in a retirement plan, you can start distributing money at 59 and half years of age. Ah, but what are the tax consequences if you do so at an earlier age? Americans are infamous for their overall unwillingness or inability to save mon... http://www.financealley.com/article_131374_19.html 21st February 2007 Less than 10 years old, Google has burst onto the scene like few companies in modern times. Now it is learning to throw around its weight when it comes to tax issues. Google likes to utter the motto of “do no evil.” Of course, most people don’t ... http://www.financealley.com/article_129500_19.html 15th February 2007 Society seems to change daily as time passes. The once proud institution of marriage has definitely taken a hit. With roughly half of all marriages failing, tax issues have to be addressed. Divorce is an ugly subject no matter how you look at it. Braw... http://www.financealley.com/article_129499_19.html 15th February 2007 If there is something people enjoy less than preparing their tax returns, it is hard to imagine. If you look to another to do the job, be very careful who you pick. The internal revenue code is a beast of government inefficiency and confusion. I dare ... http://www.financealley.com/article_129497_19.html 15th February 2007 As you know, the income you earn is taxed by the government. Alas, not all income is treated the same. In fact, some is considered off limits and is not taxed at all. The federal income tax is perhaps the most abused, misunderstood and chaotic financi... http://www.financealley.com/article_129495_19.html 15th February 2007 If you run a business, you are looking for as many deductions as possible to knock down the tax you have to pay. Following are some highlights of the taxes you can deduct that are collected by anyone other than the federal government. How confusing is... http://www.financealley.com/article_128899_19.html 15th February 2007 Preparing your tax return is a task similar to mating with an elephant. It takes a long time, there is a lot of yelling and you usually have a headache by the end. All of this can lead to mistakes on your return. Most taxpayers set out to tell the who... http://www.financealley.com/article_128898_19.html 15th February 2007 It was Albert Einstein who said physics was easy compared to trying to prepare his taxes. You probably feel the same way. The tax code is full of oddities, and here are a few that will make you roll your eyes. The internal revenue code is thousands of... http://www.financealley.com/article_128339_19.html 12th February 2007 The general assumption is that everyone must file a tax return each year. This is not entirely true. In some situations, an individual or married couple need not file. As you probably know, the tax code is a tiered system. By this, I mean that it taxe... http://www.financealley.com/article_128338_19.html 12th February 2007 If you itemize your deductions, you may be in for a windfall on this years tax. Yep, Congress has renewed the optional sales tax deduction. Of course, you have to figure it out. If you itemize your tax deductions, you already know that you can claim a... http://www.financealley.com/article_127432_19.html 08th February 2007 As you probably know by now, courts have ruled the IRS incorrectly collected a certain long-distance telephone tax. The IRS has implemented a refund program for people to recover the tax. To make things simple, the IRS has created a standard refund de... http://www.financealley.com/article_127431_19.html 08th February 2007 Working for an employer has its perks. One of them is you get a W-2 summarizing your earnings and taxes paid. But what if your employer didn’t issue one to you? The W-2 form is what is known as an information tax return. Actually known as a Wage and ... http://www.financealley.com/article_126429_19.html 04th February 2007 If you are an independent contractor, you should receive a 1099-MISC form from businesses that paid you more than $600 for your services. Ah, but what if you don’t receive one? The 1099-MISC form is misunderstood by most people. It is not a tax retur... http://www.financealley.com/article_126274_19.html 03rd February 2007 Your goal when preparing your taxes is to try to reduce your gross as much as possible. Tax credits and deductions are the tools you use to cut your gross down. Most people focus on tax deductions when preparing their taxes. It is the most common of t... http://www.financealley.com/article_125852_19.html 02nd February 2007 When going through the great task of doing taxes for a business, you can easily get trained to a tax philosophy. Specifically, you will always start asking if something is deductible. The IRS is an evil, thieving devil hell bent on stealing every last... http://www.financealley.com/article_125851_19.html 02nd February 2007 The tax code and regulations are incredibly complex, but you are assumed to know and understand them all. How scary is that? Unless you have a very simple tax situation, professional help is the way to go. Finding someone to prepare your taxes might s... http://www.financealley.com/article_125132_19.html 31st January 2007 Oh, Canada! In case you haven’t heard, Canada is going after tax cheats in a very unique way using the Internet. If the effort is successful, one has to wonder how long it will be before the IRS follows suit. The Canada Revenue Agency is the equivale... http://www.financealley.com/article_125130_19.html 31st January 2007 It is rather ironic that we spend billions of dollars on other countries, but paltry sums on our own education system. Still, the federal government is offering a few tax incentives this year. Our education system is a bit of a mess. There is a lot of... http://www.financealley.com/article_125129_19.html 31st January 2007 As April 15th draws every closer, it is time to start thinking about how you are going to reduce your tax bill. Here are a couple of ways most people miss out. Every year, the IRS tries to alert people to new deductions and credits available to taxpay... http://www.financealley.com/article_125128_19.html 31st January 2007 As the internet grows as a business medium, identity theft is becoming a bigger problem by the week. Most people, however, don’t realize it can cause you problems with the IRS. As the name suggests, identity theft is the swiping of your identity for ... http://www.financealley.com/article_123609_19.html 26th January 2007 Hard as it is to believe, employees at the IRS are humans just like you and me. This means they make mistakes and you need to let them know when this occurs. The IRS has a computer system that is legendary. The legend is all about what a nightmare it ... http://www.financealley.com/article_123608_19.html 26th January 2007