After reading some comments in Russell Roberts’ book, The Price of Everything, I realized that I have a lot of servants hard at work in my home. I have a huge number of servants working in my business.
See a partial list of servants who are hard at work at my other blog, Outrun Change: I Have Dozens of Servants in My Home and Business.
I have a series of posts about ratios analyzed by lenders when they are considering a loan to a church. The series has been combined into a page so you can see all the posts in chronological order. Click on the tab Ratio Analysis For Church Loan at the top of this page.
The Domino Project (Seth Godin’s new publishing effort) has published Death & Taxes.
It is a chart showing the federal budget on just one page. Good example of creative visualization.
The answer could easily be ‘yes.’
Corey Pfaffe, CPA, writing in “Benevolent” Gifts to Volunteers, says if you pay your volunteers you can generate taxable income that should be reported to the IRS.
There is a gray line that NPOs can easily cross. Mr. Pfaffe quotes a paragraph from IRS publication 3079:
“Example: ABC Organization operates a private school and sponsors [fundraisers] to raise revenue for the school. Parents who work at the [fundraising] session are given a tuition reduction of $50 for each week they work. This reduction of tuition is compensation to the parents; they are not working as “volunteers.”
A few weeks ago I attended the Dave Ramsey Live! event in Long Beach. Here is just one of the many great comments he had:
If you are in business, you should be reading these three authors:
- Jim Collins
- Seth Godin
- Malcolm Gladwell
I wholeheartedly agree.
At my other blog, Attestation Update, I’ve posted a list of some great books from these authors that can help you stretch your brain.
We may be in two simultaneous, overlapping recessions. One will go away, but the other won’t.
I have two posts at my other blog, Outrun Change, discussing this idea of overlapping recessions:
I’m trying to move my discussions of massive change in the economy and the work world to my other blog.
Good news. The IRS has issued guidance on the tax treatment of cell phones.
You probably recall, CPAs and other tax advisers have been grumping at you to report as a taxable benefit the personal usage of cell phones. Yes, I know it’s ridiculous, but that’s the way the law was written.
Previously discussed a scam where someone is sending letters saying businesses need to pay $370 to file the renewal of a fictitious business name license. Those are also called a doing-business-as name.
You also don’t have to pay anyone to file a Statement of Information (SOI-100) with the California Secretary of State. That is the form that nonprofit organizations need to file every two years. I previously mentioned that form in this post.
A local church should keep track of its equipment, improvements to property, and building.
You will definitely need that information if you have an audit, review, or compilation of your financial statements.
A far more common reason to accumulate that information is for insurance purposes. In the event of a tragedy such as earthquake, tornado, or hurricane, you will need to have some detail records to present to you insurance company to get full recovery for your loss. (more…)
This is the most technically complex ratio we will discuss. This is one of three calculations that lenders typically use when considering whether to make a loan to a local church. Previous discussions started here, and continued here and here.
The concept of this ratio is to look at how much income the church had last year to apply towards the loan payments. This would take the change in net assets (okay, okay, you can call that net income if you want) then add back interest and depreciation. This represents the income that could be applied to loan payments after all the other expenses were paid.
This number is then divided by the total P&I payments, not just the interest expense.
So you see it is an interesting arithmetic calculation. The goal is to provide an indication how easily the church will be able to continue making loan payments.
So what does this calculation look like? (more…)
Another thing lenders look at when evaluating whether or not to make a church loan is the ratio of debt to total income.
This calculation looks at the total long-term debt, or the loan that is being considered, and compares that to the total revenue. This would include contributions and the various program revenue items. If there is a school, the tuition income would probably be included.
I have a post up at my other blog, Outrun Change, on a leader who is in denial of the radical changes slamming his employer. See Radical changes in the work world are painful. Don’t laugh too hard at people who don’t understand what is happening. (New blog name and link listed after I moved the blog.)
Why am I starting a new blog, Outrun Change? You can find it at www.outrunchange.com. (Update – the blog name and address have been changed from what was set up at first. Sorry for the confusion.)
The amount of change taking place today is staggering. The rate of change is going to increase. That change is making our knowledge and skills obsolete. To keep up, we need to be learning and stretching to keep ahead of the radical change taking place around us.
At the Christian Leadership Conference in April 2011, Dr. Richard Swenson said that there will be 1,000 times more change in the next century than in the 20th century. There was more change in the 20th century than the previous 5,000 years. That is staggering.
My focus in the new blog will be on: (more…)
