Tony Novak CPA

Month: June 2014

  • Now is the time for effective tax planning

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    tonynova
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    Today is June 30, 2014; the year is half over. Now is the time to be effective in planning and implementing changes that will be effective in reducing taxes. Those who wait until the last quarter will – like those in every other year – be told that tax planning strategies are “too little too…

  • “Fee only” financial planning update

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    It was great to read in Financial Planning Magazine that the Boards of two of the nation’s most prominent financial planning organizations (CFP and NAPFA) finally synchronized their definition of “fee only financial planning”. Under the new rules, a planner cannot even own a minority interest in a commission-based business. One prominent planner said that…

  • Personal branding vs. social media for CPAs

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    Yesterday during a ridiculously long drive home from the North Jersey office of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants I spent some time thinking about the issue of how personal branding intersects with social media. I concluded that I might be making some mistakes in both personal branding strategy and social media. On…

  • How to handle shock health insurance increases

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    Today’s Wall Street Journal brought the confirmation that most health insurance advisers already suspected. Medical care utilization under the new Obamacare policies is at record levels. The coming rate increases of high health insurance renewal rates for 2015 and 2016 will pose a financial shock to policyholders. But if you believe as I do that “We have to…

  • IRA owners consider new threat from Supreme Court ruling

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    tonynova
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    A recent Supreme Court  decision seems to leave IRA account assets vulnerable to the claims of health care providers, even in the event of bankruptcy of the owner (Health care costs are believed to be the most common primary cause of personal bankruptcy, especially late in life). The ruling affects inherited IRAs. Industry data indicates…

  • 10 unconventional tips for replacing health insurance

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    tonynova
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    Changing health insurance is a ritual part of changing jobs, graduating from school or starting your own business. Health insurance market reforms through the Affordable Care Act have not made the process any easier or less stressful. The simple questions “What are my insurance operations?” can still be addressed only with a complicated response. The…

  • Casey Gerald Speech

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    A great speech: I’m glad that I listened to Casey Gerald’s 17 minute commencement address at Harvard Business School on YouTube. He speaks about how he was influenced by a lawyer at Yale who say that if you want to change the world in the 21st century, get an MBA. I was moved by the comments about how we can…

  • South Jersey economy predicted 5th worst in the U.S.

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      A study released last Friday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and HIS Global Insight predicts that for the rest of this decade the Atlantic City/Hammonton region will have one of the slowest economic growth rates of the entire United States. The study did not include predictions for the more rural regions of southwest…

  • The problem with crowdfunding

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    tonynova
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    The euphoria building over the possibilities that crowd funding will have on small businesses is premature. All of the media hype seems to be centered on the cash recipient; the business that will benefit from increased availability of funds. But what about the funders? Without investors, there is no cloud funding market. So far, I…

  • Investors should be scared (from a former Registered Investment Adviser)

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    The stock market hit another performance record yesterday. That is not news because we’ve hit plenty of performance records lately as the stock market continues its five+ year record-making accent that started in March 2009. A glimpse of the five-year performance of any sector of the stock market chart (the S&P 500 in this case)…