Neutrinos: Measured Traveling Fater than the Speed of Light

           Albert Einstein taught a graduate physics class, and when it came time to hand out the final his assistant noticed that it was the same final he handed out the year before, and asked him why he was passing out the same test.  He replied saying “the questions are the same, but the answers have changed.”  Modern science has come a long way, but we still have quite a way to go.  To base ones entire belief in science is to base it on something that is in constant change.  And now, there is a new development in the physics world that might change the very fundamental physics principles as we know it.

            Scientist in Italy have measured neutrinos going faster than the speed of light.  Neutrinos are like neutral electrons, almost no mass, and no charge.  In fact it is estimated that billions of them go through each of us a minute.  These Scientist have measured these subatomic particles going 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light, with an uncertainty factor of 10 nanoseconds.

According to Einstein’s theory nothing, not even the force of gravity, could surpass the speed of light, and in order for a particle that has even the smallest amount of mass to go the speed of light it would need an infinite amount of energy to do so.  So this claim will change some of the basic principles that make up the foundation for much of physics as we know it.

 However, they say they are still checking possible mistakes made, even though the past six months they have been asking physicist around the world and double checking and triple checking their work, with nothing to disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt.  There is a lot of skepticism about this experiment.  To have an extraordinary claim such as this, you must provide extraordinary evidence.

Tax Savings and Asset Protection: Basics on Tax entities

   Benjamin Franklin said that there are two sure things in life, death and taxes.  Two things new entrepreneurs can do to cut their biggest expense (taxes), and give themselves legal protection is finding the right tax entity.  This is one of the simplest ways to boost the bottom line on your income statement, and at the same time give yourself legal protection.  This is the first of more posts to come about asset protection and tax savings.  

To illustrate how ignoring this can be a huge problem.  Let’s say we start up a lemonade stand as our business.   And we have a very profitable first year.  If we don’t pick an entity we are by default going to be a sole proprietorship on our tax return.  So when we go to do our taxes we fill out a Schedule C where we can put down our profits and expenses, and we are done.  The only good thing about a sole proprietor ship is how easy it is, and if we just have a small lemonade stand that pulls in a couple hundred a year that would be fine.

Now lets say we make a couple of thousand or more with our lemonade stand.  We will not only pay our regular income tax on that, but we also bay another 15 percent extra of self employment tax, and depending on your state you can pay another 10-15 percent more for state income taxes.  If you are really well off, you could be paying upwards of 65 Percent of taxes.  You should never cheat on your taxes, especially when you’re a sole proprietorship because by filling out a schedule C, according to the formulas for choosing who to audit, the IRS is four more time likely to audit you because of the high rate of abuse the schedule C goes through. 

Now let’s say that in your business someone trips on your property or drinks a glass of lemonade that they claim was contaminated, and so they file a lawsuit against you.  Well, you being a sole proprietor, if you lemonade stand assets aren’t enough to satisfy any judgments that may fairly or unfairly pass against you, they can go after your car, boat, house, and the family jewels.  This is because you secure any debts and judgments with your personal assets as well as business assets.  They can do this because there is nothing in state law that will give you any better protection with being a sole proprietorship.

The best thing you can do to help save on taxes and give you better protection is choosing the right entity.  You have four entities to choose from: Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, S-Corporation, and C-Corporation.  Here are some general information about their strengths and weaknesses:

Partnership: This is an extremely flexible entity, allowing you to put money in and out a variety of ways without having to jump through loops like the s and c corporations do to get money out tax free.  There are different types of partnerships like general, limited liability, and limited liability limited partnerships.  To keep things simple general partnership is like a sole proprietor ship with more people, so not only can you get yourself into trouble, but your partner’s mistakes can cost you your house and family jewels too.  The other types will give you better asset protection.  I can save on taxes and it decreases you chance at an audit.

S-Corporation:  This provides a really strong asset protection, and it also can save on taxes because you can save on self employment tax.  Generally it is more difficult to get money in and back out without tax consequences.  It will also significantly decreases your chances on an audit by the IRS.

C-Corporation:  This generally provides the best asset protection, however it tends to cost the most as far as taxes go because it has its own set of very high income tax rates.  However this, like all the others, can be tactfully used to fulfill your goals and fit your individual needs.

I will continue to post more asset protection and tax savings advice, but it is important that my purpose in doing so is to educate you to be able to ask the right questions when you talk to your accountant or tax coach.  The tax and asset protection laws are very complicated, and what information I have given is very general, designed to open a new world in which you can seek the appropriate professionals and ask good questions to help you maximize your business.  Best of Luck on you business ventures!

Food for Thought: The Unwritten Rules of Business Organization

It has been said that to be a great leader, you must also be a good follower.  I believe that means we have to follow the unwritten universal rules that apply to human nature to get the desired outcome.  Like in the world of physics, these rules are like those laws that are discovered and can be used to produce a desired outcome.  Like the law of gravity, originally it was something that was just “there” until someone discovered you can put a measurement on it, and use that measurement and other principles of physics to find velocity and trajectories of objects, that is now used to help engineers design planes.  There are also fundamental laws that can be used and applied in relations and organizations.

            To those that study leadership, a big event has recently happened.  Steve Jobs, Apples founder, is stepping down from being their CEO.  Apple is one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, and it was in the Wall street journal that they are beating out Exxon, who held number one in being the biggest or wealthiest companies in the world. 

            A Wall Street article today went over the history of some fortune 500 companies when their founders passed on the burden of leading a company to someone else.  Companies like Disney, Ford, Wal-Mart, and Microsoft have had a hard time in making that transition.  It was identified that two of the best things to smoothen out that transition is to have already implanted the company’s values in the day to day affairs of the business, and to have started the training of multiple generations of leaders.  For example, Disney, when its founder had his untimely death, went through 20 years where they struggled with getting a really solid replacement, but they still did well for themselves because Walt Disney’s values were already deeply imbedded in the company.  On the other hand, when Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, left, they had capable leaders which enabled them to keep going, but they experienced problems when they forgot the founding strategies and principles of their founder. 

            I would say that to create something that truly lasts you must follow what I referred to as the “unwritten universal rules.”  Two of which I have spoken about above, about the importance of implanting company values, and training multiple generations of leaders in the company.  These laws are discovered by those who are simply observant and are willing to pay the price to learn.  So, in your endeavors to make something of yourself remember to look for these unwritten rules and be teachable enough to apply them for the betterment of your company and those around you.

Food for thought: Social Media and Small Business

 Here are three powerful statistics taken from an article "7 Interesting Statistics Every Small Business Owners Must know”

• 57% of business have acquired a customer through their company blog.
• The number of markets who say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business has increased 83% in just 2 years.
• Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic. (1)

1). See  http://www.siwamet.com/7-interest-statistics-every-small-business-owners-must-know.html for these and more statistics. 

-To get updates on blogs posts you can follow me on twitter: user name “nichemarkets52”

Birth of an Idea

  Scott Adams, the cartoonist for Dilbert, wrote an article that made the Wall Street Journal of experiences he had in college of how he learned to create something out of nothing.

  That is how the humble beginnings start for many entrepreneurs.  They give birth to an idea, that may stimulate curiosity at first, but then materializes into a a new world.  And thus it is with me.  Come with me on my own journey of stumbling over an idea that at first I thought to be obscure, and I will show you what I have learned and will learn about creating things in theory, and hopefully it will lead us into the exciting prospects of making money, learning a trade, and the learning experience of a lifetime.  My name is Colin.  I am a recent graduate with an accounting major chemistry minor at Brigham Young University Idaho.  I have have stumbled across an idea that bridges the chemistry, accounting, and my eventual hope to go into medicine by supplying researchers with scorpion venom.  Come with me and I will show you a variety of business skills from simple budgeting, to asset protection and tax savings, and we will venture into the wondrous world of modern medical research.