Category Archives: Illinois

Education, Illinois, Tips

2015’s Most & Least Fair State Tax Systems

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WalletHub just released what I find to be a fascinating and well-analyzed study of state tax systems in the United States, evaluating each on many criteria that, combined, represent what a “fair” tax system might look like.  (Local folks, FYI: Illinois scored near the bottom.)

With loads of great charts and graphs, this report is worth a read, if only to examine whether you agree or not with their evaluation of what makes a tax system “fair”.  Interesting philosophical discussion that should be fascinating to many, not just us tax accountants.

Read the report here: 2015’s Most & Least Fair State Tax Systems | WalletHub®

Education, Illinois

FREE Small Business Workshops in Chicago

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The City of Chicago is going nuts with the workshops this month.

Their biggest event, Small Business Center on the Road, takes over the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart on September 19th from 10 am-2 pm.  Among the 40+ exhibitors will be various local Chambers of Commerce, the Department of Revenue and Secretary of State, as well as consultants from the Small Business Center.  They’re offering a tax clinic, legal clinic, workshops on marketing, financing, and social media, and City of Chicago Business Consultants ready to help with licensing needs and answer questions.  Register at chismallbizexpo.com — it’s FREE!

 

Also, The City of Chicago’s Outreach & Education group is offering a bunch of workshops this month.  Please share with friends, family, or colleagues who could use the assistance!

 

How to Obtain a Mobile Food Dispenser/Prepare License

Presented by the City of Chicago Department of Business Affairs & Consumer Protection (BACP). 

This workshop will give you all the information you need to become either a Mobile Food Dispenser (MFD) or Mobile Food Preparer (MFP) licensed food truck operator. We will walk you through the MFD/MFP licensing process including inspections, the application, mobile food vehicle, and operational requirements, as well as the optional pre-application Mobile Food Vehicle Assessment.

Wednesday, September 16th

3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

 

Small Business Success

Presented by YWCA Metropolitan Chicago 

Learn the ins and outs of starting a small business and gain insight that will help you reach your goals. This workshop will cover starting your entity, marketing it for success and the intangibles of navigating the start-up arena.

Friday, September 18th

9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. 

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

 

How to Efficiently Manage Business Operations

Presented by Illinois SBDC at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and Blackwell Energies 

This workshop will focus on operations management and how to find savings at the operational level. It will cover operations management, energy and utilities, and other areas where savings can be obtained in the operation of a business. You will learn techniques that can quickly result in savings on operational costs and fatten your bottom line in the process!

Wednesday, September 23rd

3:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805
LinkedIn: Converting Connections to New Business

Presented by Digital Professional Institute and Dean DeLisle, Founder and CEO of Forward Progress

Dean DeLisle, Founder and CEO of Forward Progress, will take proven steps from our Social Selling Boot Camp and show you the most effective methods of connecting with your targets, gaining quality appointments, and finding the potential new clients in your network. You will also see what it takes to get THEM to find YOU by using LinkedIn for less than 20 minutes a day! Topics include optimize your profile, attract new prospects, leverage your connections to close business, increase targeted referrals, gain more powerful introductions, expand your pipeline and find new business channels.

Friday, September 25th

9:30am to 11:00am

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

 

Protecting your Tech Start Up: Legal Considerations

Presented by Lema Khorshid, Fuksa Khorshid, LLC

Before opening the doors to your new technology concept, it’s important to be aware of legal risks that exist so you can properly protect your business. This workshop will explore different sources to fund your business venture and teach you some basic principles of how to protect yourself in litigation. We will also discuss intellectual property laws and provide practical approaches on how to implement a solid intellectual property plan. Also, we will talk about important employment laws as well as review lease agreements to help demystify confusing legalese.

Wednesday, September 30th

3:00pm to 4:30pm

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

Illinois, POS - Point of Sale, Tips

Chicago sales tax going back up to 10.25% in 2016

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The Cook County Board has approved a 1-percentage-point sales tax increase to bail out the county worker pension system.  This increase is effective January 1, 2016.

More here: Cook County Board votes to raise sales tax – Chicago Tribune

This means that small businesses in Cook County — which includes the City of Chicago — need to make plans to update their POS and sales tax systems so that they don’t get caught charging the old, lower rate to customers, but paying the new, higher rate to IDOR.  It’s surprising how often I see this happen, so: businesses, mark your calendars!  Accountants, reach out to your clients!  A 1% spread over the course of a month or a quarter could mean a lot of cash out-of-pocket for companies, especially retail stores, that do not plan ahead.

As for why this is happening:

“The immediate problems is pensions. The city of Chicago alone has a $20 billion unfunded liability and when Moody’s Investors Service dropped the city’s debt rating to junk, it forced $2.2 billion in accelerated debt payments. So Cook County has to borrow more money now at higher interest rates to pay those newly due bills AND it has to increase sales taxes to that whopping 10.25% rate effective in January to help pay the interest on it all.”

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/16/sticker-shock-sales-taxes-in-chicago.html

As for what it means for the poor, and for our communities… well, this is entirely my own opinion, so feel free to stop reading here if what you wanted to know about were the ramifications for accounting.

But, in my opinion, it’s important to remember that sales tax hikes, unlike income taxes, affect even the poorest among us. If you don’t make a lot of money, then you have to spend 100% of it just to keep going. That means 100% of it is subject to sales tax. It’s not the same for someone with disposable income, who can choose not to buy something because sales tax makes it too expensive.

Furthermore, an over-ten-percent tax rate hurts the local economy, causing businesses to avoid locating here and customers to avoid shopping here, choosing the suburbs instead.  (This is not just my opinion — studies have shown this is exactly what happens: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-cook-county-tax-0719-biz-20150717-story.html#page=1 )

Lastly, this hike is entirely to shore up a pension fund that they’ve known for years was underfunded. An emergency measure now, when this is obviously something that bad planning caused in the first place, smacks of crappy governance.

But that’s just my opinion.  The important take-away as a small business owner or accountant?  UPDATE YOUR POINT OF SALE AND SALES TAX SYSTEMS BEFORE JANUARY 1.

Illinois, Tips

Open Co-working Week at Free Range Office Chicago, June 15-19

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Open Co-working Week at Free Range Office Chicago is coming up!

From Mon. June 15th through Friday, June 19th, Free Range Office (2nd Floor, 2141 W North Ave, Chicago, IL 60647) will be offering free workspace for a day, educational seminars, workshops, complimentary food and drinks, and a happy hour to get folks acquainted with their space and with the co-working movement. Email carly@freerangeoffice.com for a free Day Pass.

http://www.freerangeoffice.com/open-coworking-week/

The idea behind the co-working office space movement is to offer alternatives to both the corporate box and the isolating home office. “You set the pace, and the terms, in an environment that promotes comfort, innovation, networking and collaboration. The welcoming ambiance provides extra amenities to make your life easier, including ergonomic chairs and spacious desks; private telephone room; outdoor terrace; chef’s kitchen; gourmet coffee and tea; video blogging studio; laundry and dry cleaning delivery service; and even a weekly chair massage day to work out those knots.”

According to an article in last year’s Chicago Tribune, “coworking spaces are the front lines of Chicago’s new economy.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/series/coworking-spaces/chi-bsi-series-chicagos-coworking-spaces-ngux-story.html

(Note: I’m not affiliated in any way with Free Range Office, or any other co-working space — I just think they’re a genius idea for small businesses and have a few clients who get a lot out of the arrangement, so I wanted to spread the word.)

Illinois

Guzzardi Works On New ‘Cooperative’ Law For Illinois | LoganSquarist

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Really looking forward to hearing more about our state representative, Will Guzzardi’s work on this new “Cooperative” law.  As most of you know, I’m a keen proponent of cooperative structures as a sustainable alternative to typical corporations, where the managers and board members are obligated to put shareholder returns first.  With cooperatives, the mission is just as important as the margins.

Also very excited to see clients Dill Pickle Food Co-op and Five Point Holistic quoted and referred to in the article!  Give it a read:

Guzzardi Works On New ‘Cooperative’ Law For Illinois | LoganSquarist.

Illinois

Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Accountant’s Privilege

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Illinois CPA Society – “Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Accountant’s Privilege”

Fascinating update on an important court case for Illinois CPAs. The Illinois Supreme Court recently upheld that:

1) The accountant is the holder of what is known as Accountant’s Privilege (similar to attorney-client privilege), not the client;

2) That a particular common law exception — which for attorneys permits a breach of the privilege — does not breach the accountant’s privilege; and,

3) That the accountant’s privilege can be waived when the accountant discloses information to a party.  This means that if subpoenaed, CPAs must carefully consider from the beginning whether to disclose documents, as it could lead to inadvertently waiving the privilege.

Thanks to the Illinois CPA Society for bringing this important Regulatory Bulletin to my attention.  It’s big news!

 

Illinois

Illinois Introduces Automatic Retirement Savings Program

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Starting in 2017, Illinois will require businesses with at least 25 employees to offer a retirement plan at work.  Employees will be automatically enrolled in individual retirement accounts, funded through a 3 percent deduction from their paychecks (although they can opt out).

The employers’ administrative burden will be limited to making the payroll deduction, similar to the ones they already take for taxes — employers will not have to help fund the plans themselves.  Costs will be paid by savers, who will be charged up to 0.75% of their balances (a pretty average expense ratio — and not as low as Vanguard’s, who I tend to recommend to clients trying to save for retirement).

Apparently, access to a plan that operates by payroll deduction enormously changes participation, from almost zero to over 50% — even though IRAs are widely available to individuals, easy to set up, and can be simple to fund with automatic bank direct debits.

However, as the article puts it perfectly, “it’s not enough to have a retirement account; you need to get enough money into the account to live on in retirement, and for most Americans, Social Security plus a retirement account funded by 3 percent of wages won’t produce enough savings.”  Still, it’s a step.

Illinois Introduces Automatic Retirement Savings Program, a First for the Nation – NYTimes.com.

Illinois

2015 Illinois income tax rate down 25%

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(Note: there is much speculation about how long this tax cut will last, as the new governor has been vague about short-term tax policy; do not necessarily count on this cut lasting throughout 2015.)

The same 2011 law that hiked state income tax rates by 67 percent kicked into its built-in second phase Thursday with a partial rollback.  Beginning January 1, the tax rate for individuals dropped from 5 percent to 3.75 percent, while for corporations it declined from 7 percent to 5.25 percent.

via Illinois income tax rate falls by 25 percent Jan. 1 – Chicago Tribune.