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HSA Update: What’s new in health savings accounts?
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Within Employee Benefits and Retirement Planning

Posted by: SBOC Team, Apr 23, 2012

by Sherron Lumley. A health savings account (HSA) is an option available to small businesses that when used in combination with a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) provides an affordable way to offer medical benefit to employees. For the employer, there is a significant benefit—contributions made to an employee’s HSA are tax deductible. For the employee, the benefit from the employer is not considered part of gross income for tax purposes, so the funds contributed are not subject to...
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Revisiting Retirement Benefits: Is It Time to Sweeten Your Employees' Plans?
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Within Employee Benefits and Retirement Planning

Posted by: SBOC Team, Mar 19, 2012

By Sherron Lumley. Whether a distant dream or just around the bend, retirement benefits hold significant sway with employees making decisions about where to work and for how long. In fact, a 2011 Mercer What’s Working survey of 30,000 workers found that, among American and Canadian employees, retirement plans placed second only to base pay among the most important employee value proposition elements. Despite this emphasis, modern-day employees are notoriously poor at following through...
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What’s New in the Health Care Law for Small Businesses?
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Within Employee Benefits and Retirement Planning

Posted by: SBOC Team, Feb 15, 2012

by Reed Richardson For the New Year, the implementation of the 2010 health care reform law continues apace. And with the arrival of 2012 there are some new (and some old) provisions that small businesses should consider when both planning for the upcoming year and filing taxes for the prior one. (To review a broad list of the health care reform changes, check out the Small Business section of the Healthcare.gov website.) Small Business Health Care Tax CreditFor small businesses that...
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The Small Business Case For Offering Health Benefits.
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by Reed Richardson. Ask almost any small business owner about health insurance costs and they’re likely to tell you the same thing. Were Ben Franklin around today, he would have to amend his famous quote “Nothing is certain but death and taxes” to include one more inevitable fact of life: health insurance premium increases. Indeed, the recent figures can be eye-watering. Between 2001 and 2011, health premiums increased 113 percent across all business sizes in the United States, according...
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An Ounce of Affordable Prevention: Corporate Wellness Programs May Be Even More Important for Small Businesses
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In the 15 years that a small metal finishing company has had an aggressive wellness program, the number of employees who smoke has decreased from 42 percent to 15 percent. The compliance rate could be due to the fact that non-smoking employees get automatic lower insurance premiums. However, the senior managers think employees are motivated by the program’s offerings, which include perks like a three-day, all-expenses-paid mountain climbing expedition in Colorado. The company also boasts...
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Employee Continuing Education: Can it mean big rewards for your business?
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Within Employee Benefits and Retirement Planning

Posted by: SBOC Team, Jan 13, 2011

By Max Berry When money and time are tight, assisting with your employees’ continuing education may seem like little more than a nice idea: one of those potentially rewarding but ultimately non-essential strategies you’ll employ once your bottom line is a bit healthier. But in a service-based economy that thrives on innovation—and with young people bringing more advanced education to the work force than ever before—refreshing the education of your own employees begins to seem less like an...
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Planning for the sunset: Defined benefit retirement plans
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Why a defined benefit plan can help a small business owner be ready now for retirement later By Christopher Freeburn While many small business owners may hope to fund their retirement through the sale of their business to employees or partners, for most small businesses that simply isn't a realistic option. Furthermore, with ever-greater numbers of people launching their small businesses as a second career, many small business owners are facing the prospect of looming retirement with...
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Job seeker overload.
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Handling the deluge: If your small business is ready to start hiring again (or will be soon), here's how you can avoid being overwhelmed by job seeker overload by Reed Richardson Much like the topsy-turvy real estate market, today's labor market represents a sea change from pre-recession days. Whereas many employers once had to scramble to find job candidates and sometimes engage in bidding wars to fill positions, they now face hiring challenges of an opposite sort. And, if your small...
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Health Care Forecast
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Why 2010 will likely bring higher costs for your small business and what you can do about it By Reed Richardson While Congress and the White House are still struggling to craft a health care insurance reform bill that, if it passes, will mostly take effect in 2011 or later, many small business owners may wonder where health care costs are headed in the short term. The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is up, but not quite as much as in years past. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs may find that the...
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Opt In Or Opt Out
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Find out whether an automatic enrollment 401(k) plan is right for you By Max Berry Saving for the future is every person's individual responsibility. But, as a small business owner, you have the power to provide your employees with some incentive. Instituting an automatic enrollment 401(k) plan may be as close as a you can come to guaranteeing that your employees will save. Automatic enrollment increases plan participation dramatically, but it also presents its own set of challenges for...
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The ’10 Spot
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What next year's tax law changes regarding IRAs mean for retirement By Reed Richardson Typically, the arrival of each new year brings with it a host of tax law changes, some small, some large, and some too arcane for all but the most savvy investors to benefit from. But 2010 brings with it such an important and relatively simple (but easily overlooked) tax law change-one that could potentially save you hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars over the coming decades-that both...
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All About SEPs
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Simple to set up, easy to administer, Simplified Employee Pension Plans may be for you By Max Berry Among all the 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and various types of IRAs available to you and your employees, Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plans don't get a whole lot of attention. This doesn't mean you shouldn't consider one for your firm. If you're a small business owner just starting to offer retirement packages to your employees-or one simply looking to expand the ways employees can save-a SEP may be...
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Helping 'Em Save
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How new rules help biz owners control employees 401(k)s By Chris Freeburn Helping your employees save for retirement is not merely an altruistic gesture on your part. There are huge benefits for you as an employer, and for your business as a whole. In today's increasingly competitive marketplace, businesses small and large are competing for highly skilled employees-and the competition is only getting more intense. Today's highly talented job applicants are looking for more than a good salary....
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Chuck's Story
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By Gene Marks Chuck put $1,500 in his pocket this year just for doing a little paperwork, and boy was he happy. "Honey," he crowed to his wife on the phone. "Tonight it's Seafood Shanty baby...and you can even order the shrimp cocktail!" Man oh man, we're talking payday. How did he fall into this extra money? By doing something every business owner should do. At the beginning of the year he set up a Health Savings Account. Wait a second; haven't these things been around for a while? Well,...
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Health Insurance: Examining the Options, Controlling the Costs
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If you don't offer health insurance, should you? If you do, but the costs are killing you, what can you do? How do you find a health plan that won't make your company sick? By Chris Freeburn Perhaps the most burdensome issue facing small business owners today is health insurance. As costs continue to spiral and coverage options become more and more complex, many small business owners find the challenge of providing employees health insurance while keeping the company's bottom line healthy too...
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