Twitter marketing makes use of the social media platform’s tools and network to connect with your target market. With Fast Company reporting 69 million monthly active users on Twitter in the United States, it’s no wonder that it’s considered a highly effective marketing platform for any business. However, this also makes getting noticed a challenge.... The post Top 26 Innovative Twitter Marketing Strategies and Tips appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/twitter-marketing-strategies/
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Real estate investment software is used by residential and commercial real estate investors to help analyze an investment property. We reviewed more than 20 real estate software providers based on their cost, features, and reviews. Then, we chose 10 real estate investment analysis software to include in our list of the best options. How We... The post Best Real Estate Investment Software 2018 appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-real-estate-investment-software/ It takes more than cutting-edge talent and equipment for an engineering firm to succeed. They also must have an effective marketing strategy to attract prospective clients. Start with a well-designed engineering business card that looks great and has your key business information. To help, we curated some of the best examples from around the web... The post Top 25 Examples of Engineering Business Cards from Around the Web appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/engineering-business-cards-examples/ Search engine optimization (SEO) services help build a business’ online presence to ensure the highest possible search rankings for specific keywords on a search engine like Google. We compared more than 40 small business SEO services, narrowing it down to the top six based on pricing, toolkits, specializations, and transparency, arriving at the best overall. Top 6... The post 6 Best Small Business SEO Services for 2019 appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/best-small-business-seo-services/ G Suite and Office 365 are two integrated suites of collaboration and productivity apps. G Suite offers Google apps like Gmail, Docs, and Drive, while Office 365 offers Microsoft products such as Outlook, Word, and Excel. Both options have starting prices at $5/month per user and have tiered plans for businesses with different needs. When... The post G Suite vs. Office 365: Price, Features, & What’s Best appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/g-suite-vs-office-365/ Real estate social media marketing provides exposure for your brand and properties online and is an effective marketing strategy that you can implement yourself with the right tools, insights, and information. We talked to agents who are crushing it on social media and we’ll share their top tips to help you dominate your farm area.... The post Top 21 Tips to Crush Your Real Estate Social Media Marketing appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/real-estate-social-media-marketing-tips/ There are two capital gains tax categories - short term and long term. Long term investments pay less in taxes - these are investments that you typically hold for longer than one year. Short term investments are taxed at your regular income rate. Let's break down what the capital gains tax brackets look like, the income cut-offs, and more below. You can see how these compare to the regular Federal tax brackets here. What Are Capital Gains?When you sell a stock for a profit, you realize a capital gain. Basically, when most assets are sold for a profit, a capital gain is generated. Profits or gains are taxable. How much you’ll pay depends on a number of factors, including the current tax brackets, which change periodically. Personal assets and investments are called capital assets. This includes your home, car, investments, recreational vehicle, and more. IRS Topic Number 409 covers these items in more detail. A capital gain or capital loss is based on the difference between the asset sale price and your adjusted basis, which is referenced in IRS Publication 551. 2019 Capital Gains Tax BracketsThere are two main categories for capital gains: short- and long-term. Short-term capital gains are taxed at your ordinary income tax rate. Long-term capital gains are taxed at only three rates: 0%, 15%, and 20%. Short-Term Capital Gains RatesTax rates for short-term gains are 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. Short-term gains are for assets held for one year or less.
Long-Term Capital Gains RatesJust like short-term gains, there are four filing categories: single, married and filing jointly, head of household, and married and filing separately. The amount of taxes paid is based on income. Long-term gains are those on assets held for over a year. Below, the percentage of taxes paid are listed on the left with the corresponding income on the right.
Married filing separately is a unique case. Make sure you speak to an accountant around long term capital gains in this case. Here is the tax brackets for it though:
Calculating Capital Gains and LossesWhile you can have a capital gain from the profitable sale of an asset, you can also have a capital loss from the sale of an asset below your purchase price or adjusted basis. As an example, say you buy and sell stock in the same year up to November. Your trading has netted $10,000 in profits. These profits are classified as short-term gains because they’re less than a year old. Then in December of the same year, you sell more stock for a loss of $3,000. Your capital gain is reduced to $7,000. A different investor buys and sells some stock during a year and manages to lose $5,000. This investor has a capital loss of $5,000 but can only declare $3,000 ($1,500 if married filing separately) for the current year. What happens to the remaining $2,000? The $2,000 capital loss in the previous example is carried over to the next year. It can be applied as a capital loss. Using another example, our investor has a capital gain of $10,000 in the next year. They can offset this gain and reduce their taxes by the amount carried over from the previous year: $2,000. Their new capital gain is then $8,000. Just like ordinary income, capital gains are taxed progressively. You can see this in the tax brackets section above. If you are single and make $450,000, your long-term capital gains tax bracket is 20%. The good news is that the full $450,000 isn’t taxed at 20%. It instead is taxed at three different levels of income using different tax rates. How to Reduce Your TaxesNobody likes paying taxes and everyone is looking for ways to reduce them. There are a few ways that you can reduce your capital gains taxes. Selling Your HomeYou can reduce gains on your home sale by up to $250,000 if you’re single and $500,000 if your married and filing jointly. There are some rules to pay attention to. You must have lived in the home (primary residence) for two years during a five-year period before the house is sold. You can’t have sold another home and used it to reduce capital gains within a two-year period of selling your primary home. Keeping Investments for at Least a YearIf you hold investments for at least a year before selling, you’ll be able to take advantage of long-term gains. Use a Robo-AdvisorRobo-advisors have become very popular. While they haven’t yet replaced financial advisors, for most people, they can help save on taxes. Robo-advisors use a method called tax-loss harvesting. By selling losers, gains on winners are offset. Of course, you can perform tax-loss harvesting manually. However, robo-advisors make this task easy through the use of automation. It seems there is nowhere to hide from taxes. But arming yourself with knowledge about capital gains taxes can help you save money. We’ve already seen a few practical tips. Your accountant is likely to have more. Ask your accountant questions throughout the year so you can set yourself up for maximizing capital gains tax reductions. The post Capital Gains Tax Brackets 2019: What They Are and Rates appeared first on The College Investor. from https://thecollegeinvestor.com/23577/capital-gains-tax-brackets/ Live chat software connects service and sales teams with site visitors in real-time, routing them to the appropriate agent using built-in tools to increase customer satisfaction and sales. When implementing live chat software, it’s important to adhere to best practices like customization, integration, triggers, chatbots, and more, increasing your customer service capabilities. Freshchat live chat... The post 7 Live Chat Best Practices to Improve Sales & Customer Service appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/improve-sales-with-live-chat-software/ CRMs for Mac users help teams that use Mac devices, Apple operating systems, and tools like Mail or Safari better manage prospects and customers. We looked at a variety of CRM options and narrowed it down to the top six based on price, Apple-specific integrations, and customer support to learn which is the best overall.... The post 6 Best CRMs for Mac Users in 2019 appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/crm-for-mac/ January is one of my favorite times of the year - for a financial blogger - because a majority of people start thinking about their money again. And when you start thinking about your money, the key place to start is organization. Over the years, I've tried everything possible to organize my money. I'm talking about keeping track of all my accounts, paper statement, insurance documents, bills, wills, old tax returns, business documents, and more. It seems like every year, the amount of "stuff" I need to keep grows and grows. As such, I've become a financial organization pro. Today, I'm going to show you how I organize my financial life, and you can as well. I break it down into three sections:
Let's get started. Keeping Your Financial Accounts OrganizedThe first step in getting your financial life organized is simply listing out your financial accounts. There are three ways to go about this - the simple spreadsheet or list method, the software method, and the online method. But before you start, you just need to list out what you have. You should account for all of the following for accounts that hold monetary value. That is the key - these are the accounts that are worth money, not insurance or other financial "things". Banking
Debt
Investments
Retirement
Once you have all of these accounts listed, it's time to get them organized so that you always know your balance and any transactions that take place. The three ways to go about it are pretty straightforward: The Spreadsheet or List MethodThis is the traditional way to keep track of everything. You basically maintain a spreadsheet or list of all your accounts, and you update it manually every month as you pay your bills. This method takes more work than any of the other methods, and it's hard to get real time data unless you're going online and checking your accounts. Most people that use this method rely on paper statements and reconcile them when they arrive. One of the best spreadsheets I've found is called My Financial Life on One Page (FLOP). It's a free download, so check it out. The Software MethodThis has been the cornerstone of financial organization for the last 10 years - using software to keep track of all of your accounts. The most popular software for this is Quicken, which I use myself (just don't get Quicken for Mac). However, there are alternatives, like iBank (which works for Mac). The great thing about the software method is that you can automatically update all of your accounts, so it alleviates a lot of the manual work involved. First, you take your list of accounts (that you created earlier), and you input them into the software. Next, you connect it to the online service using your online name and password. Going forward, you can use the software (like Quicken) to automatically download recent transactions and update your account balances. Finally, these software tools have more reports and tools that can help you monitor your money easier than with a basic spreadsheet. The Online MethodOver the last five years, online services to help you keep track of your accounts are really becoming popular. Check out our list of the best Quicken Alternatives. These services work just like Quicken, except they are online, and they are FREE! Once you add in your accounts, these services will update your balances and make recommendations on how you can save - which is how they make money (through services and advertising). Tracking Your Bills And Other DocumentsAlright, now that you have all of your account balances in one place, what the heck do you do with all that financial mail you get? You know, the bills, medical statements, and more? You have to deal with some now, and some you just need to file for later. This is all about having a system. For our family, the system is very simple: we have an inbox on our desk that we clear on Friday nights once the baby goes to sleep. Here's what ours looks like: The goal is to make sure that you clear out his inbox every week. You have to take action on these documents. Sometimes the action is very easy, you just pay the bill. I prefer to use online BillPay to send all of my payments, so we typically have Quicken and our bank's website open on the computer while we're paying our bills. Once we clear out the inbox, we file away the statements and throw away the trash. We also now scan in all of our files digitally to avoid saving what we don't need. But how to we file the statements? Managing Your Financial FilesThis is the last part of the financial organizing equation - managing your financial files. Over the course of a year, you create so many documents it's important to stay organized. You will typically have: a monthly account statement for every account listed above, a monthly bill for every utility you have, copies of your tax return, insurance statements, and more. Some of these items you can toss after just a short period of time. Most bills you can toss after a year. However, some items you need to keep for a long time. For example, the IRS recommends you keep your tax returns for at least three years, but it really makes sense to keep them forever. To make things easy on myself, I use the Home File System: As you can see, the system provides tabs for all of the major categories that you will ever need to keep, along with guidance about what should go where, and a Quick-Find index up front. Inside each tab, you make a manilla folder for each individual account. For example, one of the first tabs in "Auto", and you can see a manilla folder for one of our cars- Honda Civic. Inside each tab you can keep a copy of your registration, insurance, and any service records. That way, everything you need for resale or trade-in is filed in one spot. The same applies to banking, investing files, even pay stubs from your "Employment" (which you can see almost dead-center in the picture). I then make it a habit, once a year in January, to go through and purge out any old items that I don't need anymore. This is the best way I've found to stay financially organized. What systems and tools do you use to stay financially organized? The post How To Completely Organize Your Finances And Your Money Life appeared first on The College Investor. from https://thecollegeinvestor.com/15522/completely-organize-financial-life/ |