Problem-solving focuses on taxes, layoffs and capital - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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MILL: Welcome to the first BizNet interactive evenf that thebe hosting. We feel part of our responsibility is to conven the leaders of this community and collaborate ontoughy topics. For the past two month we polledour readers, event attendees and memberws of large associations in the area and we askeed them one simple question: In these uncertain times, what business challenges are keeping you up at night and where specifically coulr you benefit from a discussion with othefr business leaders? One of the thingas we kept hearing is there are no experts anymore and that reall y the experts are each and every one of you and the peoplr on this stage.
ARNOLD: This is a different To understand who’s in the room, this is agaij anonymous, you’re going to vote. There’e going to be a series of questiona and all you have to do is puncy the number how you wantto respond. If you don’tr like the first response, you have until the voting is done to just hit the number you like. In what industry do you work? Looks like a lot of peopled in bankingand finance. That’s good That’s how we break In the old days there’d be more real estate peoplr here. Just kidding. Next question how many people does your company employ? That’s today.
Results show that 39 percent of you have less than 25 and then we also have some big players here with many representingb firms of 251or more. Next one is what is your position ? Today. When you left for lunchg what wasyour position? So we’ve got a bunch of Cs here CEO, CFO. Next question: What’s the revenued of your company, total yearly revenue? I can’t joke about this one. What were your revenuesw or what areyour revenues? Interesting. Pretth much skewed along the sides of the size ofthe organizations. This is a problem-solvingh interactive process and theway we’sd like to see it but it’s up to your interaction.
Individual speakers will make some commentx in about 15 minutes about the issuesz their clients are askingfthem about. You will be asked to send to the centerd of the room questionsyou have, and we’ll throwq the questions up and you’ll be able to vote whic ones are most important to you. Now, to look at tax, let me welcomwe Brooks Nelson, who brings us an individual NELSON: I’m going to talk for a few minuteasabout taxes. My primaryh focus is going to be on the tax provisions that came inthis $800 billion bailout package. I can only hit some highlightd and keypoints I’ve seen.
I’m also not goiny to go a lot into prospective orproposed There’s a ton around, but the primary focuz is going to be on the actual laws that have been enactecd at this point. First question: Are you interested in knowing aboutg potential new tax breaksfor businesses? You answeredd yes. There’s some good news and bad The good news is there were no rate increasesw in the tax package for this The bad news is there was no tax rate Allin all, the bill is fairlgy business favorable. The two big applicabled items to almost all businesses and particularl small businesses are the capitalexpensingy provisions.
I’ll try not to talk in First one is Section179 expensing, which refers to the abilithy to buy a piece of equipment and, instead of takinf a deduction over many years of its to actually write it off in one year. This new tax act extendas the provisions that were put in place last year underd theprior act. You can writ e off up to $250,000 in equipment purchases straighf off asa deduction. There is a phase-outr limit at $800,000 of investments. The provision primarily applieds to tangible personalproperty — equipment, furniture, fixturesd and such.
There’s also in that provisionh a taxableincome limitation, and that’as important from a planning perspective, and that’s where the nuancea in this provision come about. So you can writde off equipment that you purchase upto $250,000 and writse it off against your taxable incomwe and zero out your income, but you cannot creat e a tax loss usingf the 179 provisions. But you are allowe to pick and choose what you want towritwe off. Also to add, there are numerous pitfalls if you’res operating as a partnership or S tousing 179.
If you have a partnet or shareholder that is an estat e or trustfor example, that poses