Author: Tony Novak
-
Who do you trust?
“Who do you trust?” was a television series hosted by Johnny Carson that ran during the years around when I was born. It might be called a precursor to reality TV since it was filmed live and Carson was known for his ability to react to the unexpected. The words come to mind today as…
-
Trends in my blog traffic: strengths and weaknesses
I noticed a simple but striking pattern in the popularity and readership of my blog posts over the past year and thought I would share here for what it may be worth to others. The traffic report is compiled by Jetpack as a WordPress add-in for traffic on about 1,300 blog posts recorded since November…
-
The problem with change in government
The problem with change in government is that it presumes that the new guy can do better than the collective input from all prior human minds that combine years of public process by all widely varied viewpoints. It says “we are not happy with the result so let’s throw it out and start over”. It…
-
Church and taxes
The topic of church and taxes in is the news this week as Trump plans to dispose of the federal law known as Johnson Amendment that has effectively separated church and state for most of our lives. Let’s be clear this is not about expressing opinions- we all get to do that. This is about money…
-
Dealing with opposing values in business
I briefly considered working with a business adviser who impresses me as brilliant. Yet business brilliance and social leadership do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. I realized that his values are exactly opposite mine as expressed in this social media post. Separately, I’ve also taken steps recently to distance my business from customers and vendors who do…
-
Limitations on free tax preparation for 2016 returns
Each tax season I am pleased to prepare some individual tax preparation services for n fee except the filing fee. My online filing service provider’s fee is $20 per return so the tax filer must cover this cost. My offer is usually made to a small number of middle income neighbors as a way to promote my…
-
Sad end to the ‘realness’
OnlineAdviser and OnlineNavigator services end public access for incoming call telephone support. Unscheduled telephone calls will no longer be accepted due to a share rise in scam attempts. Perhaps the most significant career contribution I’ve made to the business world is the establishment of OnlineAdviser and OnlineNavigator nonprofit services that have addressed tens of thousands of consumer…
-
Consumer boycotts are working
This post was updated on February 8 after Nordstrom dropped the Trump product line and share price rebounded by 5 percent. Uber also abandoned support for the administration last week and donated $1 million to the resistance movement. Consumer boycotts seem to be picking up more steam this week against a handful of companies like Amazon, Yuengling,…
-
The short list of legal income tax avoidance tools
Most of the legal tax saving strategies used successfully by individual taxpayers in the U.S. stem from just 12 tactics. These are frequently observed in tax practice and confirmed by the IRS1 as the most expensive to the government. All of these avoid federal income tax: Earnings of nonprofit business organizations Qualified employee benefits Deferred compensation…
-
Civil protest is always ugly and sometimes deadly
Civil disobedience is ugly and inefficient. It is uncomfortable, costs us property and sometimes even lives. But civil protest is by far the most powerful force that exists in society. Certainly the United States would not exist today as a nation if small groups of drunken colonialists had not engaged in shameful behavior of…